---II

JTAS

Multiculturalism and Identity: A Visual Investigation through the Medium of

Printmaking

by

Karen L. C. Lunn, BFA (Hons.), Dip. Ed.

Submitted in fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Signed statement of originality

This Thesis contains no material which has been

accepted for a degree or diploma by the University

or any other institution. To the best of my

knowledge and belief, it incorporates no material

previously published or written by another person

except where due acknowledgement is made in

the text.

Karen L. C. Lunn

JTAS

Signed statement of authority of access to copying

This Thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance with the Copyright

Act 1968.

Karen L. C. Lunn

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Milan Milojevic for his unfailing guidance, support and

encouragement, and my associate supervisor Dr. Llewellyn Negrin for her advice and guidance. I

would also like to thank Patricia Scott for the interest she has shown in my project and for

reading this exegesis, and Patrick Lunn for his

patience, support and encouragement.

I am very grateful to my father, Steven Mato Stivicic, for his willingness to share with me his

stories and memories, and I dedicate this research to him.

ABSTRACT

The catalyst for this project has been my father's migration from Croatia to Australia in the 1950's

and my experience of his European heritage within my Australian environment. My father and the material artefacts he brought from C roatia,

such as photographs and textiles, created a small but strong presence of this heritage for me within

my family and the domestic interior of my home.

From the moment I recognised their 'difference',

which had been disguised by their familiarity as objects that were part of my daily life, and saw

them as representations of the exotic, their

presence intensified. They have since been the object of my curiosity and desire � a curiosity with the familiar made strange; and a desire to know

more about their original context: the past, the

homeland, and the people depicted in the photographs. My connection to this heritage is via

these artefacts and is enriched by my father and his stories, memories and descriptions that project an idealised version of his homeland.

This project investigates these artefacts as forms of

representation from which knowledge and

perception of the homeland are derived for the

first-generation. An important aspect of the project is the migrant and his/her verbal

testimony which is integral to the development of the first-generation's perspective since it is the

migrant's idealised version of the homeland that is passed down to and explored by their children.

The artefacts are a tangible connection to the past

and the homeland. They are explored as the only

means of access to that world for the first­generation, who have no fi.rst�hand experience of

the actual place.

This project is autobiographical in that i t stems

from my own personal experience, although it is

also representative of the dilemma faced by all

first-generation children of migrants. It reveals an

unbridgeable distance between the place that was

left by the migrant and the concept of the

homeland from the perspective of the first­

generation.

The significance of this research is where my

works have reinvented the artefacts and their

specific cultural references, changing and

distorting them, rather than simply illustrating

them, incorporating them visually, as if to reclaim

a repressed heritage or a lost history. It is the way

in which the source material is manifest in the

work, in their distorted form, which can be seen as

a sign of this repression and the irretrievable past

The nature of the works submitted reveals an

obsession that characterises the position of the

first-generation - an obsession that is entirely

dependent on the futile pursuit of the homeland.

The outcomes of this investigation reveal the

first-generation's perception of the homeland to be

their own fetishised projection which is the result

of the lack or absence of materials and knowledge

from which they can build up and develop their

own exploration of their cultural heritage.

Contents

Introduction .................................................................................. ................................ 1

Chapter One Cultural Identity and the 1-figrant Experience .............................. ............. .................. 7

The Perspective of the First-generation Children of 1-figrants .................... ............... 19

Chapter Two Artefacts as Items of Ascribed Significance and Condensers of Memory ............... 25

Chapter Three The Studio Investigation ............................................................................................. 52

Chapter Four Related Art Practices ............................................................................................... 103

Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 138

Appendices 1. List of Illustrations ........................ ................................................................. ...... 142

2 Bibliography ....................... ............................ ...... ............................. ................... 149 . , 3. Curriculum Vitae .................................................. .......................................... ...... 163

INTRODUCTION

1

This research project has been influenced by my

father's migration from Croatia to Australia in the

1950's. He left under duress and came to Australia

in search of a better life. Given the time that has

passed, he has said that he can not always trust his

memories of Croatia. He recalls the fertility and

beauty of the homeland, the relative wealth of his

family, and the close relationship he shared with a

number of them in particular. Whilst my father is

realistic about the situation he left, at times his

descriptions of Croatia have been embellished

with a richness that supersedes the reality.

Although he talks of the freedom he has gained,

there is a detectable sense of loss in his

descriptions: the loss of paradise; his family and

his homeland. · I have understood his

embellishment to be a product of this sense of loss,

along with his cultural displacement as a migrant,

and the effect that time has had on his memory.

A small number of artefacts are the only material

evidence of his homeland and the past. These

consist of: some black and white photographs of

my father's family; articles of costume; some

textiles - table cloths, doilies, and a colourful

woven rug - and some small wooden objects - a

carved cigarette box, a flute, and a donkey.1 My

father acquired these items approximately fifteen

years after his arrival in Australia when he

returned to Croatia following the death of his

brother. Their arrival in Australia preceded my

Throughout this exegesis I refer to these photographs and objects collectively as artefacts. I have used this term because it is both a concise and objective description of these things and allows me to discuss them prior to my subjective interpretation of them in chapter two where they are discussed in relation to the souvenir and the fetish.

1

birth by two years. By this time they were part of the domestic interior that was to become my home. If given any function at all, these artefacts were used to adorn and to beautify the home, or simply to exist as curios in their own right. Like all other furnishings and objects, I had an intimate relationship with them as the materials which circumscribed the private space of the home.

Approximately seventeen years ago someone commented to me on my father's accent, to which I replied, "What accent?". Like the items he brought back from Croatia, I had come to know his voice, never perceiving it as 'different'. From this point on I started to become aware of other 'differences', such as the Croatian coat of arms and

the Croatian and Australian flags that decorated the mantelpiece in our living room. I discovered

a book on Croatia, Croatian music and the small wooden trinkets that were displayed in a cabinet behind glass. I noticed the textiles that decorated table surfaces, and the costume that was kept among the bath towels and flannelette sheets.

Inside the cover of a well-fingered Australian­Croatian dictionary were a few small black and

white photographs of my father's family. For a long time these photographs were kept separately

from the ones that filled a suitcase, documenting my family's life and history in Tasmania. Only recently have they been placed together in a photographic album.

From the moment I recognised their 'difference' their presence intensified. There was a tension

between the intimacy and familiarity of these artefacts and their foreignness through their cultural displacement As artefacts of a culture that was different to the Australian culture of my birth, I saw them as representations of the exotic. They now seemed to resist a comfortable

2

integration into my domestic interior, as if to

stand out 1n protest against the present

overshadowing the past, refusing to remain in the

background. Their cultural displacement, their

reference to an irrecoverable past, and the way

they blurred the distinction. between the familiar

and the strange, was overwhelming and fuelled

my curiosity and desire.

As material connections to the homeland and the

past, these artefacts presented a means by which

the homeland could be (re)visited and the past

reawakened - bridging the gap and void that had

been created by time and displacement. I therefore

ascribed significance to these artefacts based on

their ability to transcend their material worth.

The association I made between these objects and

loss and the irretrievable enhanced this

significance.

This is an autobiographical project which

investigates these artefacts as forms of

representation upon which knowledge and

perception of the homeland are based for the first­

generation children of migrants. The migrants

and their verbal testimony play an integral role in

the development of this perspective and this is an

important aspect of the project. Where this

influence is acknowledged it is my own inflated

projection of the homeland that is at the centre of

this investigation. This project does not simply

draw from these artefacts and their specific

cultural reference, incorporating them visually as

if to reclaim a repressed heritage or recover a lost

history. Rather, it reinvents this material

changing and distorting it - which itself may be

seen as a sign of its repression and unattainability.

The theoretical context of this investigation can be

divided into two areas and these are discussed in

3

chapters one and two respectively. In chapter one

I consider writings on cultural identity as they

relate to the migrant experience focusing in

particular on recent discussions by cultural critics

Homi Bhabha, Stuart Hall and N ikos

Papastergiadis. These contemporary arguments

have been important to this investigation as they

reveal how the migrant's account of the past is

mediated by their present situation and it is this

mediated knowledge of the homeland and the

past that is passed down to the children of

migrants. In the final part of this chapter I turn to

the perspective of the first-generation, focusing on

the way in which knowledge of the past and the

homeland is passed on. I liken the relationship

between the children of migrants and their

parent(s) to that of the mapmaker and traveller in

A Mapmaker's Dream by Australian author James

Cowan. This serves to establish the perspective

from which this research was undertaken.

In chapter two, I explore photographs and other

artefacts as material condensors of memory and

the presence attributed to them which elevates

them beyond the ordinary. Beginning with

photographs, I consider writer Marianne Hirsch

and her discussion on family photographs as the

things which bind first- and second-hand

remembrance, which I relate to my own situation.

For more general and related issues concerning

the photograph I consider the writing of Roland

Barthes and Walter Benjamin. Through their

discussions, intrinsic qualities of the photograph

are explored - its relationship to reality, the

irrecoverable past, and death - and this is used in

order to express the significance of the

photographs explored through my investigation.

The second part of chapter two considers objects of

ascribed significance. Here I turn to writer Susan

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Stewart's thoughts on the souvenir. She identifies

the souvenir as an object that serves as a trace of

experience which, consequently, becomes a

powerful aid to memory and is activated through

the use of narrative. Stewart's discussion serves to

identify the position of the migrant in relation to

the artefacts, and the role of the migrant's verbal

testimony in enhancing their significance as

objects.

A discussion of the work of art historian Hal

Foster concludes this chapter. There are two areas

of his writing that have been relevant to my

investigation. Firstly, his writing on the

anthropological understanding of the fetish as an

object endowed with an independent life force is

related to my inflated projection of the homeland

through the artefacts. The second aspect of

Foster's writing is where he considers the practice

of the Surrea1ists. Foster argues that the recovery

of repressed historical material is a feature of the

Surrealists' practice and that, when it resurfaces in

their work, it takes on a new 'demonic' guise.

This is relevant to the outcomes of my research

with the confronting and, at times, discomforting

aspects of the works produced.

Chapter three provides a detailed account of how

the project was pursued in the studio. I begin by

considering the lines of enquiry that were pivotal

to the project and important to its outcomes.

Following this is an analysis of the work

submitted for examination, detailing its

conception and progress, and the evaluations that

took place which shaped its final outcome.

Fina1ly, in chapter four, I discuss the artistic

con text for this project. I begin by providing a

context for this investigation within printmaking

practice, and continue by focusing on two groups

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of artists who have been of particular relevance to

my research. First are the artists: Elizabeth

Gertsakis, Wilma Tabacco and Domenico de Clario

who form a group of artists whose practices can be

seen to be informed by their own cross-cultural

perspectives. Second are .the artists: Christian

Boltanski, Joseph Cornell, and Ann Hamilton.

The second group have influenced this project in

terms of the materials they employ in their works,

such as photographs, found images and objects,

and clothing; the way in which they are used -

often obsessively and with reverence; the spaces

they create; and the worlds to which they allude.

Domenico de Oario's practice bridges the two

groups and is also discussed in the context of this

second group.

The conclusion provides a summary of the

concerns of this project and its contribution to the

field.

6

' ... ' '1.:

CHAPTER ONE

Cultural Identity and the Migrant Experience

The migrant experience, particularly its effect on

cultural identity, has been an important aspect of

this project. For the purposes of my argument,

migration is used herein to refer to the act of an

individual leaving his/her place of origin, where

she/he shared the same culture as the members of

that community, and arriving in a place that is

culturally very different. This difference presents

an immediate barrier to communication, as there

is no mutual understanding between migrants

and the members of their new community with

whom they do not share a common language.

Further differences may relate to the migrants'

physical traits or style, or their practice of rituals

and customs that are different to those of the

community they have entered. In contrast to their

cultural identity pre-migration, their post­

migration experience is such that their association

with the community is seen in terms of their

difference, rather than similarity, to others. The

individual has gone from being one of many, that

is, a member of an homogenous group, to being

one of few - an outsider to an homogenous group

and consequently is seen as 'other'.

With substantial numbers of migrants in the

world, definitions of cultural identity that rely on

the containment of culture and identity to one

source have been reevaluated. This research

project has been influenced by contemporary

theories that consider how cultural identity can be

formed across more than one cultural group.

These theories suggest that cultural identity is not

simply extended by the grouping together of the

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influences of two or more different cultural

groups, but rather, is reconstructed out of the

relationship between these different influences

and the tensions associated with their difference.

Until relatively recently, the predominant way in

which cultural identity has been conceived has

been in terms of organic unity in which the

homogeneity of a people has been emphasized.

This is evident in writer T.S. Eliot's definition of

culture.

In his Notes Towards the Definition of Culture

{1948), Eliot attempts to provide a definition of the

term 1CUlture'; to take it beyond its common use to

describe the sum of the practices and arts of a

group of individuals. Eliot argues that to describe

culture as something tangible is too simplistic.

Rather, Eliot prefers to view culture as something

immaterial in nature, and suggests that culture is

that which comes from:

... people who live together and speak the same language ... (which) means thinking, and feeling, and having emotions, rather differently from people who use a different language?

Eliot's definition suggests that culture is the

product of individuals who share the same

geographical home, language, thought processes.,

and emotions. Whilst there is merit in his

attempt to understand culture as something quite

complex, his definition implies that culture is

dependent on unity and homogeneity. Eliot's

definition has proved too limiting in recent times

as it fails to take into account the cultural diversity

within communities, and perhaps more

Eliot, T. S., Notes Towards tbe Definition of Culture, London, Faber and Faber, 1948, p. 120

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significantly, within families, which is the product

of large-scale migration across the world. 3

I was born in Australia to an Australian mother

and a Croatian father, and it is this experience of

two different cultures that has informed my

research. I have been particularly interested in

how my father's culture and his memories of the

homeland have been affected by his experience as

a migrant, and how I have been in receipt of

knowledge, memories, stories and descriptions of

my heritage that have been shaped by my father's

cross-cultural position.

It can be argued that from migration, a new

culture develops on 'new soil' and that it does so

out of the need to compensate for the loss of the

homeland. This new culture rna y retain

similarities to the migrant's original culture, and,

at the same time, be different from it because it is

inevitably shaped by the culture of the migrant's

new home. By way of further explanation, in

continuing to practice in their 'old' culture, their

'parent' culture becomes stagnant through its

separation from the homeland, as it is not affected

by the natural evolution that takes place back

home.

Contemporary cultural theories explore cultural

identity as something that is subject to change and

transformation. The following discussions,

offered by a selection of these critics, are relevant

to my reasons for undertaking this research

project because they describe how the migrants'

account of the homeland that is passed down to

Although of no consequence to his argument, Eliot briefly considers the effect of migration on cultural identity, and suggests that from migration a new hybrid culture is created, one that is' ... bafflingly alike and different from the parent culture'. See Eliot (1948), p. 64

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their children is mediated by their cross-cultural position.

One writer who has explored the concept of cultural hybridity more thoroughly during the 1990's is cultural critic Homi Bhabha. In an interview, Bhabha (1990) defines particular terms he uses in his work, such as: cultural translation,

cultural hybridity, and 'third space'. The definition he provides of his use of these terms shows the development in this area of thought since the time of Eliot, where cultural identity is no longer seen as reliant upon a fixed and stable centre.

Bhabha explains that by cultural translation he means that there exists a relationship between cultures, which is evidenced by the fact that degrees of translation or simulation between different cultures can occur. It is this relationship

which facilitates cultural translation. He says that this relationship is not the product of a similarity in contents of cultures however, but rather, all cultures relate to each other because they an have an underlying 'structure' to their practice.4

Cultural translation therefore implies that, although all cultures have their own unique

contents, no culture has impenetrable boundaries that secure it from the representation by, or influence of, other cultures. Bhabha refers to cultural translation as a form of mischievous

imitation, arguing that through the imitation of the original, the authority of that original is not reinforced but disputed by the fact that it can be simulated.5

Rutherford, Jonathan. ''Interview with Homi Bhabha", in Rutherford, Jonathan, Identity: Community, Culture and Difference, London, Lawrence and Wishart Ltd., 1990, pp. 209 -210 Rutherford (1990), p. 210

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The importance here is not whether a direct or exact interpretation between different cui tures can occur, but that some degree of simulation occurs. Bhabha's use of cultural translation suggests that cultural identity need not be fixed to a particular origin as it can always be defined in relation to a different cultural group. Since cultural translation

denies authority to an original source, Bhabha suggests that no culture is pure or unique in itself

and that 'all forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity'.6

Bhabha sees the position of the cultural hybrid as valuable not because it gives equal weight to two or more cultures in the formation of an identity, but rather, because it sets up a new position that can exist both outside and inside of culture. He describes this as an identification with a 'third

space'. Bhabha writes:

... hybridity ... is the 'third space' which enables other positions to emerge. This third space displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets u p new structuies of authority ... But the importance of hybridity is that it bears the traces of those feelings and practices that inform it [without giving them] the authority of being prior in the sense of being original. 7

·'

From cui tural hybridity a third space emerges, one which is not necessarily a more representative, inclusive ieality, but one that is positioned in such a way as to sceptically consider the mechanisms through which cultural totalisation or notions of authority which depend on origin occur. From the 'third space' one can judge critically, and with some authority, those practices that work to maintain impenetrable barriers between cultures.

Rutherford (1990), p. 211 Rutherfon:i (1990), p. 211

1 1

This concept of a 1thlrd space' - a new position

which emerges from cultural interaction, bearing

the traces of both cultures - past and present - and

the concept of cultural hybridity - are important

aspects of this project because they describe the

effect of migration on the cultural identity of an

individual. For the migrant, cultural identity is

no longer bound to his/ her place of origin but

rather, is reconstructed out of the relationship

between his/her place of origin and his/ her place

of arrival. A tension arises from the differences

between the two cultures, resulting in the

migrant's feelings of displacement and alienation.

Through this, migrants gain an acute sense of

their unique place in the world, a heightened self­

consciousness, where they are constantly aware of

their difference to others, which is both self­

imposed and imposed by others. They therefore

take up the position between cultures from which

they negotiate their identity.

In this research I have been interested in how, in

light of a new position emerging between cultures,

the migrant's account of the self, and of the past or

homeland, is articulated. This is considered in the

work of Stuart Hall (1990) who has written

extensively in the area of cultural identity. Hall

explains that his perspective on the issue of

cultural identity has been informed by his own

experience of two different cultures. At the

beginning of his essay, "Cultural Identity and

Diaspora", Hall states:

What we say is always 'in context', positioned. I was hom into and spent my childhood and adolescence in a lower-middle-class family in Jamaica. I have lived all my adult life in England, in the shadow of the black diaspora .... If the paper seems preoccupied with the diaspora experience and its narratives of displacement,

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it is worth remembering that all discomse is 'placed', and the heart has its reasons.8

Hall's statement that �an discourse is 'placed", and

the 'heart has its reasons' indicates that when

migrants talk about themselves and their

homelands, they speak from their cross-cultural

perspective which is inevitably shaped by the

feelings that arise from their displacement and

alienation. In this way, what they end up

describing is not so much the place they left, but

an idealised version of the homeland that is then

passed down to their children.

As all discourse is placed, so too are identities, and

when identities are mediated by different cultures,

they need to be understood in terms of the effect of

these differences. I had never learned to speak

Croatian, with the exception of only a few words,

and whenever my father spoke in Croatian with

visitors, on the telephone, or when we attended

Croatian Oub functions, I was immediately aware

of a cultural difference. Although I could not

comprehend what was being said, I learned to

recognize this language in films or when I encountered people speaking it in the street or in

shops or delicatessens where I would g o with my

mother when she bought particular things for my

father. Despite the familiarity of its sounds and

intonations, it remained something that was part

of my life that I would never fully understand,

something that would continue to serve as a point

of difference.

Other aspects of my father's culture had a

particular presence about them due to a difference

Hall, Stuart, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora", in Rutherford, Jonathan, Identity: Community, Culture and Difference, London, L awrence and Wishart Ltdv 1990, pp. 222-223

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in their qualities, although they did not have the

effect of displacement These were food, music,

and the smells and decor that were particular to

many of the homes of my father's Croatian

friends. Their difference was not something that

was so easily understood- it was something that I

was part of but knew that it was different to my

'Australian' culture. As aspects of this 'other'

culture were not overtly part of my life, I became

more curious. Despite having spent more of his

life in Australia than Croatia, my father continues

to experience cultural differences. I have learned

about cultural difference through my father and

his experience, but also through my own

experience in my interaction with him, and

cultural difference has shaped my own

understanding of identity.

In "Cultural Identity and Diaspora", Hall looks at

how we might understand cultural identity as

something that is shaped not so much by a

particular origin, but by a number of 'presences'.

In developing this concept he distinguishes it

from that view which sees cultural identity as

something that is a stable core of the self and

remains the same, or 'true', over time. In this

view, the core is the 'true self' which is 'hiding

insid� the many other, superficial or artificially '

imposed "selves", which people with a shared

history hold in common'9• Hall argues that such a

view of cultural identity is too limiting since it

does not take into account the changes that occur

in the history of a culture or an individual's

personal history.

Alternately, Hall suggests cultural identity should

be seen as never finite, but as always having the

potential to change and be altered, as something

Hall (1990), p. 223

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that continues to shape itself in relation to forces

such as history and migration. Hall looks at how

identity need not always be formed on the basis of

similarity but can also be constructed out of

difference. He states:

... as well as the many points of similarity� there are also critical points of deep and significant difference which constitute 'what we really are'; or rather - since history has intervened - 'what we have become' . ... Cultural identity� in this second sense� is a matter of 'becoming'� as well as of 'being'. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something that already exists� transcending place� time� history and culture. Cultural identities come &om somewhere� have histories. But� like everything which is historical they undergo constant transformation.10

This second position looks at identity as an

ongoing production. This view does not dismiss

the role of place of origin in identity formation for

the migrant, but rather, it displaces the authority

that the first conception of cultural identity gives

the past over the present.

Hall argues that the second conception of cultural

identity does not impose the same restrictions as

the first view of identity. The first is restrictive

because it takes into account only one perspective,

or the influence of one cultural group. The

second view however, encompasses several

viewpoints at once without imposing a hierarchy

that gives authority to the original or prior

culture. The second view considers both past and

present cultural influences 1n identity

construction and leaves room for any future

influences to be included also. This view is open­

ended, and does not lock identity into a fixed

position.

Hall (1990), p. 225

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This second view, as expressed in Hall's

argument, is relevant to this discussion not only

because it better describes the migrant position, but

also because it can be used to show how the

migrants' recollections and representations of the

past are affected by their experience of two or more

cultures. Hall argues that the past remains

important because all identities have histories.

However, he states that what is recalled from the

past is always mediated by the present:

The past continues to speak to us. But it no longer addresses us as a simple, factual 'past' ... It is always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth.11

Hall is suggesting that the past is as constructed as

identity itself, because when it is recalled through

memory, it undergoes transformation and

reinvention. This is significant to the concerns of

this research project because it suggests that the

migrants' recollection and description of the past

and their homeland are not entirely factual. The

past is told through the eyes of the present, that is,

the migrant's perception of the homeland is

influenced by their cu ltural displacement, which

exaggerates the desirable qualities of home.

Furthermore, it shows the subjective nature of the

information that the migrants pass on to their

children.

The migrant is constant! y involved in the

movement back and forth, between different

cultural groups, between past and present.

His I her position is not one from within the

boundary of any culturally specific group, but

rather, from the boundary between cultures. This

idea has featured in the writing of Nikos

Hall (1990), p. 226

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Papastergiadis (1993), who, like Hall, says his own

experience of cultural diversity has informed his

appreciation of the complexity of these issues:

... [My] ownsense of oscillating between and against the coordinates of Greece-Australia-Britain this situational identity ... has sharpened my awareness of the constant process of translation and negotiation between the foreign and the familiar ... 12

In a lecture titled, "The Ends of Migration",

Papastergiadis looks at the migrant as someone

who has crossed cultural borders and speaks from

the boundary in between. He considers how

migrant identity is formed across borders through

the experience of cross-cultural interaction.

Papastergiadis says that in the process of

migration, identity becomes fragmented, that at

the end of migration, 'the journey forks delta­

like'13. This split, he explains, can be seen in the

migrant's self-representation, which is informed

by the effect that this migration has had on their

cultural identity. He establishes his argument by

citing the two ways of understanding cultural

identity as presented in the work of Stuart Hall.

Papastergiadis describes the first concept in terms

of symbol, and the second in terms of metaphor.

Papastergiadis says that cultural identity as symbol

emphasises unity and homogeneity, and presents

it as a timeless concept, remaining unchanged

throughout history. He argues against this

conception of cultural identity stressing that it is

too limiting. 14

Papastergiadis, Nikos et al, Art and Design Profile No. 43: Art and Cultural Difference: hybrids and clusters, London, Academy Editions, 1995, p. 7 Papastergiadis, Nikos, "The Ends of Migration", in Agenda: Contemporary Art Magazine, Issue29, March 1993, p. 7 Papastergiadis (1993), p. 8

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By way of contrast, metaphor implies that there is

more than one way of representing cultural

identity - that it is not fixed to one source.

Papastergiadis argues that metaphor does not give

preference to origin but rather gives equal voice to

the past and the present in the creation of identity.

He writes:

Metaphor stresses the inventiveness in the inventing of one's past. ... Metaphor acknowledges that cultural identity oomes from the past but it also gives voice to the transformation that ocous in ... its ooming to the present. ... Cultural identity is found ... in the way we represent olUSelves in relation to a particular construction of the past.15

This conception of cultural identity when applied

to the experience of migration suggests that

cultural identity becomes a construction that is

based on not one cultural group, but two (or

more). Cultural identity is therefore transformed

through this process since it now involves

moving back and forth between two cultural

groups, and past and present. Furthermore, the

migrant has become aware of him/ herself as

'other'. These things together constitute what

Papastergiadis has described as a split or

fragmentation that occurs through migration.

Papastergiadis argues that the migrant perspective,

which is confronted with 'the other within the

self, furth�r complicates the already unstable

concept of self-representation or autobiography.

He writes:

There is no doubt that all autobiographical accounts of the self reveal the instability of memory, that is, the oscillation between history and self-recoll ection and fiction as self-invention.16

Papastergiadis (1993), p. 9 Papastergiadis (1993), p. 9

18

11

Papastergiadis reveals the complexity of what is

transmitted in the relationship between migrants

and their children, when on a separate occasion he

states:

Migration is a process which is not completed by the arrival of an individual in a foreign place. Arrival rarely mearu; assimilation. Migrants are often transformed by their journey and their presence is a catalyst to new transformations in the spaces they enter. Similarly their relationship to their original 'homes' is rarely erased. Departure seldom entails forgetting and rejection. The narratives of modem migration are often intricate patterns of criss-crossing between various communities and across various generations. The migrant's sense of restlessness, insecurity and ambivalence, as well as their attachments and memories of 'home' are often transmitted to their children. 17

The migrants' narratives of the past are often

more revealing of the situation they have found

themselves in since their migration, and as such,

they are a combination of knowledge and

sentiment. The children of migrants are the

recipients of these narratives, and this is how they

learn of their history and the place of the

homeland.

The Perspective of the First-generation Children

of Migrants

The position of the first-generation children of

migrants as the recipients of the migrant's

narratives is the perspective from which this

research has been undertaken. Central to this

investigation is the argument that the first­

generation are not passive listeners and that the

Papastergiadis, Nikos (ed.), Annotations 1: Mixed Belongings and Unspecified Destinations, London, Institute of International Visual Arts in association with the John Hasard Gallery, Southampton, 1996, p.14

19

18

homeland as an imaginary construct is a product

of their own projections. This position of the

children of migrants can be descnbed in relation to

the book A Mapmaker's Dream by Australian

author James Cowan. This book developed from a

journey Cowan made to Venice with the aim of

furthering his research on Lord Byron. At this

time he came across the journal of a sixteenth

century Venetian monk by the name of Fra

Mauro. The journal consisted of unusual stories

and reports that Fra Mauro had interpreted from

travellers who had visited all known parts of the

world. Cowan's book takes the form of an

adventure story narrated by a monk who never

leaves the confines of his own cell. Fra Mauro is

also a specialist in cartography and he chooses to

represent the information presented to him in the

form of a map of the world. The book is a

descriptive account of newly discovered lands,

inspired by the allure of the exotic in the

travellers' experiences. Fra Mauro's position can

be likened to my own with my father having the

role of visitor and informant, and I the role of

cartographer and listener, driven by the same

intrigue for the exotic and unfamiliar in the

'homeland'. Fra Mauro states:

Every box I compass in my mind directs me toward an imaginary land. I am seeking new ideas, visions. I do not wish to confirm what I already know. Each map I draw is made up of information I have received from visitors to my cell, as well as those ideas of my own

that have been inspired by their sage and often noble remarks. Strangely, though, I find myself living in the presence of what for them is already a retrospective moment. By speaking to me they are able to regain a l l that they might have thought forever lost.18

Cowan, James, A Mapmaker's Dream: the mediations of Fra Mauro, cartographer to the court of Venice, Australia, Random House, 1997, p. 6

20

19

l\)

21

My father's 'homeland' can be likened to the

imaginary land to which Fra Mauro is directed. It is comprised of fact and fantasy and is a

collaborative construction between narrator (my

father) and listener (me). The act of narration is

an attempt to regain an irrecoverable past and is

confined to the realms of the imagination. That

which is described is not a realistic geographical

location but rather an imagined space that exists

somewhere between fact and fantasy. I see the act

of self-invention that is employed by my father, as

his attempt to compensate for his loss, and this is

also revealed to Fra Mauro by a Jewish man who

had fled his home in Rhodes. Fra Mauro stated

that having been 'separated from his origins as

both a man and a Jew, he had discovered in his

rootlessness how to inhabit a region in his own

mind'.19 The Jewish man later confirmed the

insight of Fra Mauro's observation when he said:

I know that the boundaty between myself and nature sometimes wavers and melts away, so that I can no longer be sure whether what I see w ith my own eyes springs from outward or inner impressions . .. i f the outside world were perchance to perish (as it did for me in Rhodes) I know that anyone of us would be capable of rebuilding it. 20

In an attempt to impart knowledge of my family

history and cultural heritage to me, my father has

revealed the 'homeland' as it has been affected by

his feelings of displacement and loss as a 'new'

Australian. Likewise, the creation of Fra Mauro's

map assumed a dimension that was not part of his

initial considerations, having not expected to

receive so much 'meditative' knowledge21• Fra

Mauro discovered that his representation of the

world was not composed from the objective

Cowan (1997), p. 27 Cowan(1997), p. 28 Cowan (1997), p. 59

21

22

23

24

information he had originally thought, but rather,

it was composed of his visitors' emotional and

psychological responses to the world that they had

imparted to him. Fra Mauro, realised that the

world he was representing through his map was

not a geographical place, but the world as it had

been internalised by his informants22• Likewise,

my father's description of his family and the

Croatia he left is inevitably shaped by his

emotional attachment to home, and so instead of

giving a descriptive account of an actually existing

place, he ends up describing an idealised sense of

space.

The construction of a place that does not exist in

geographical terms is not solely the work of my

father - it is equally my own projection. This

realization also struck Fra Mauro where he states:

Though I was seeing the world through the gaze of others, I somehow believed that the world they had seen, I had seen also. In the act of reoording their experiences I was translating for them what had been indecipherable ... Although I had appointed myself (the map's) unofficial cartographer, I had no way of knowing whether I was reflecting the earth's existence ormyown?3

In this regard, the 1magmary 'homeland' is also

part of my self-representation as it signifies the

distance between my knowledge and my father's

experience. Just as Fra Mauro's experience of the

world is second hand, so too is my knowledge of

the homeland, and this part of my family history.

Likewise, just as Fra Mauro's map gives form to

something that is 'not of this world'24, the works

submitted for examination are not representations

of places or things that exist in real terms, but

Cowan (1997), pp. 59-60 Cowan (1997), p. 61 Cowan (1997), p. 40

22

rather places and things that exist in memory and

the imagination .

. My father's memories, stories and descriptions of

the homeland are important sources of knowledge

for me and provide me with an indirect access to

this lost world. The photographs and objects that

my father brought to Australia also provide a

means of access to the past.

The following chapter discusses the particular

significance the artefacts from the homeland carry

for me, and the significance I ascribe to them, as

the only material connection I have to my

heritage.

23

CHAPTER TWO

Artefacts as Items of Ascribed Significance and

Condensors of Memory

At some point in most peoples lives individuals

define who they are in relation to their family and

the history they have inherited. This may be a

relatively simple task for those who have access to

an extensive archive and oral history passed down

by family of several generations. However, there

are those who know very little of their history and

have little access to it, and if there are any material

remains at all, they prove to be a too insubstantial

basis from which one can build-up and develop

one's own exploration of the past. This

investigation argues that this is the dilemma of

the first-generation children of migrants who are

severed from the past and the homeland of their

parent(s).

For what is often a forced migration - one which is

undertaken as a matter of physical or emotional

survival, or in the pursuit of freedom - the

migrant has no desire to return to the place of the

past, or to revisit the trauma of the events that

took place. The migrant is driven by the need to

rebuild and to move forward without looking

back.

Migrants who flee from their homeland depart

with such haste that all the belongings and

keepsakes they take- are those they could manage

to fit into one suitcase. For their children, this

suitcase with its contents, and the oral history of

their parent(s), is the only connection to, and

source of knowledge of, their heritage and the

homeland. These artefacts have not simply been

the lucky survivors of the past - having stood the

test of time - they have been chosen to be the

25

stubborn remains, and thus not only do they

affirm the past's existence, but they also signify

loss and absence.

Individuals who are surrounded by their family

history and the material remains of the past may

have little interest in it. I argue however that the

children of migrants have an obsession with the

past and a desire to know more about their

heritage and the homeland which is generated by

the fragmented remains and the

knowledge and first·hand

Furthermore, this is fuelled by the

lack of real

experience.

allure of the

unknown and the exotic in the past and in this

heritage. Consequently, for the first-generation,

the few artefacts that exist become substitutes for

all that has been lost, and thus, as fragments of the

past and the homeland, they come to stand in

place for the whole. To the first-generation these

artefacts refer beyond the confines of their own

literal representations and as such are imbued

with a significance that far exceeds their material

worth. The overvaluation of these artefacts is

therefore a projection by the first-generation onto

these material forms.

This investigation has explored these artefacts as

the basis for the first-generation's knowledge and

perception of the homeland; their history and

heritage - that which contributes to their own

being. The artefacts that my father brought to

Australia have provided the source material for

this investigation and comprise of images -

photographs - and objects such as costume, textiles

and small curiosities. Whilst it is the collective

presence that these artefacts hold for me, that is

the basis of this investigation, the works for this

project are predominantly responses to two

photographs.

26

fig. 1

Portrait of my Grandparents,

Katica and Sljepan Sti vicic,c. 1925

Both photographs were taken in a photographer's

studio and on each occasion the same formal pose

was taken. The first of these images is a full­

length portrait of my grandparents (fig. 1).

They stand side by side and stare, with serious

expressions, directly at the camera. My

grandfather is neatly dressed and is smaller i n

stature than my grandmother. My grandmother's

skirt has the greatest allure - its expanse of white

attracts my eye every time it is viewed. The

volume and form of the skirt, its abundant use of

material and many layers give it an unreal

dimension, where its stze appears

disproportionate to the rest of her body. Each skirt

is edged with intricate lace creating a mass that

hovers just above the floor.

I am constantly drawn to my grandmother's skirt

in this photograph. Where this image depicts the

27

fig. 2

Group Portrait

Back, left to right Katica and

S*pan Sti vide and my

great-aunt Front: my great­

grandmother and my aunt,.

Marica Stivicic (baby), c. 1930.

skirt's incredible density and tactility, its flat, two­dimensionality denies its experience to the senses other than sight. What is denied by the

photograph feeds my obsession with the image and makes it necessary for me to engage with my imagination. The absence of the skirt in real or physical terms intensifies the presence of this image for me.

In the second photograph, an atmospheric studio backdrop is used (fig. 2). This image depicts my grandparents and great-aunt standing around my great-grandmother who nurses my aunt - my

grandparenes first child. As with the first photograph, the state of dress of my grandmother, and great aunt, is elaborate. The backdrop is

28

6g. 3.

Jean Honore Fragonard

Tht Swing

c.1766

oil on canvas

83 x 66 cm

shadowy and vaporous with a suggestion of

foliage and light beyond; the sense of mystery this

creates draws me into the image. I imagine that if

I were to physically enter that space I would find

myself in the sensuous garden of the Jean-Honore

Fragonard painting, The Swing which sits at odds

with the expressionless faces of the figures in this

photograph (fig. 3).

Fragonard's painting depicts, just below its centre,

a lady dressed in a voluminous pink dress worn

over layers of white underskirts. She is seated on

a swing that is being worked by a male figure in

the lower right-hand corner. Lounging in the

lower left-hand corner against the blooming

foliage is a man gesturing romantically toward her

with an extended hand. The light is soft and

romantic. The garden is at the peak of perfection -

everything is in bloom and full of life, captured

forever by the painting. This painting has the

29

same fertility about which my father has spoken of

his homeland, describing it as a rich and plentiful

paradise.

If these photographs were more telling of the

reality that they hide, they would not have so

much allure and would cease to be the subject of

my curiosity. There is little information to be

gathered from these images and this feeds my

desire to know more about the place and the

people they depict. These images are seductive in

their depiction of intricate and decorative surfaces

and the setting of a mysterious landscape. They

are depictions of reality only in the sense that they

show the figures as they actually existed before the

lens of the camera. These photographs are not

accurate depictions of the homeland and my

father's family - they are not expressions of the

mundane or everyday rather, they are

representations of the romantic and extraordinary.

Through these photographs my father is able to

recall his past, his family and his homeland from

his memory. As I have no first-hand experience

of this past or of the homeland, what I recall

through these images is my experience of learning

of this heritage through my father and his

recollections, stories and descriptions. As these

images are the source of my visual knowledge of

the figures they depict and the landscape they refer

to, they are the basis for my creation of an

imaginary homeland.

Marianne Hirsch, the author of Family Frames:

photography, narrative and postmemory, looks at

the role of the family photograph and its

accompanying narratives in facilitating

remembrance and in connecting different

generations to a shared history, and this has been

an influential text in this investigation. Hirsch

30

26

'27

identifies two forms of remembrance: first-hand

remembrance, or memory, and second-hand

remembrance, which she refers to as postmemory,

and she considers their respective relationships to

.the photograph. Hirsch argues that for memory

the photograph is a trace of a past moment that

was experienced first-hand by the individual, and

so it acts as a trigger to that individual's

memory. 25 By contrast, Hirsch argues that in

postmemory the individual was not there to

witness the past first-hand because they were not

yet born, and hence the past cannot be recalled

through the photograph but is constructed out of

an 'imaginative investment' in the photographic

image?6 Hirsch describes postmemory as 'often

relentless and obsessive' and states that:

Postmemory characterizes the experience of those who grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose ownbelated stories are evacuated by the stories of the previous generation shaped by traumatic events that can be neither understood nor recreated. 27

Hirsch relates the obsessive nature of the

generation of postmemory to their desire for an

irrecoverable past. I argue that this generation's

struggle to rebuild or piece together from the

fragments of that past a more complete picture, is

their way of trying to regain what was lost and to

acquire some understanding of how the past has

shaped their own life. The concept of

postmemory can be used in relation to the first­

generation children of migrants who develop a

second-hand 'memory' of the homeland, the past,

and the migrant experience through their

parent(s). As photographs are part of the only

Hirsch, Marianne, Family Frames: photography, narrative and postmemory, London. Harvard University Press, 1997, p. 22 Hirsch (1997), p. 22 Hirsch (1997)� p. 22

3 1

remains that can connect the first-generation to

their cultural heritage, they become the objects of

their obsessive attempt to rebuild in order to

access the past.

Hirsch fully develops the concept of postmemory

in reference to the comic book Maus: A Survivor's

Tale by graphic artist Art Spiegelman. Maus is a

story told in collaboration between father and son,

Vladek and Art Spiegelman. This work tells three

stories concurrently: the story of Vladek's

holocaust survival; the story of Vladek and Art's

relationship as father and son; and, Art's life as it

has been dominated by his obsession with his

parents past. All three stories intersect each other

as there is a constant movement back and forth

from past to present, present to past, and likewise

between the individual stories of Vladek and Art.

The text in Maus is largely based on Vladek's story

of survival, which Art tries to include with great

accuracy by capturing it on tape, and transcribing it

complete with Vladek's broken English. Art's lack

of understanding of the events of the past, and

perhaps the lack of physical evidence that

remains, drives his obsession for accuracy where

he insists on greater detail from Vladek in his

recollection.

The visual component of Maus is predominantly

Art's contribution where he draws the Jewish as

mice, the Germans as cats, and the Polish as pigs.

A much smaller visual component of the story,

yet an intensely powerful one, is the reproduction

of three of the Spiegelman's family photographs.

The three photographs that appear in Maus do

not, in themselves, have the capacity to re-tell the

32

fig.4

photograph of Art and Anja

Spiegelman, reproduced in

Maus l: My Father Bleeds

Histary, p. 100

23

past. This is articulated by Vladek and is

prompted by Art and the questions he asks about

his family history. The photographs that are

reproduced consist of an image of Art as a boy

with his mother Anja, a portrait of a young child

with short, neat blonde h air, and a portrait of

Vladek. It is only through the narrative in Maus

that these photographs are placed in the chain of

events that construct the Spiegelman's family

history. It is also through narrative that these

images transcend the ordinariness of the family

snapshot to become signifiers of immense loss.

The photograph of Art and his mother is the first

to appear and could be seen as a familiar holiday

image if it were not for Art's accompanying

narrative which reads: "When I was 20, my

mother killed herself. She left no note"28 (fig. 4).

Art's narrative transforms the image from a

generic family photograph to a powerful symbol of

loss and absence. The power of this image as a

condenser of memory is made apparent when we

Spiegelman, Art,Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History, Lond� PenguinBooks, 1987, p. 100

33

6g.5

photograph of Richieu Spiegelman.

reproduced in Maus II: And Here

My Troubles Began, dedication

page.

learn that it is one of the only traces of Anja's

existence that survived Vladek's attempt to

destroy all of her belongings after her suicide, as

they possessed 'too many memories' .29

Similarly we learn of the connection of the other

two photographs to the past and their respective

function within the Spiegelman family. The

second photograph to appear is on the dedication

page of the second volume which reads "For

Richieu and for Nadja" (fig. 5).

F O R R I C H I E U

A N D F O R N A D J A

We learn through the text that Richieu is Art's

brother who died prior to Art's birth and that

Nadja is Art's daughter. Eventually some insight

is given as to whom the photograph may

represent. lt is revealed through the story that a

Spiegelman (1987), pp. 158-159

34

fig. 6

photograph of Vladek Spiegelman.

reproduced in Maus 11: And Here

My Troubles Began, p. 134

30 31

picture of Richieu was hung on Vladek and

Anja's bedroom wall, which Spiegelman works

into his illustration in the final pages of this

volume. The child in Art's illustration wears the

same overalls as the child in the photograph on

the dedication page. From this illustration and

Art's comments that his parents didn't need a

photograph of him because he was alive, Hirsch

argues that the photograph on the dedication page

is of Rich ieu.30 Based on Art's comments as to

why a picture of Richieu hung on his parents'

bedroom wall, this photograph could be seen to

deny the loss of the son by functioning as a

substitute for the real.

The final photograph reproduced in Maus depicts

Vladek dressed in a concentration camp uniform.

The uniform looks new and clean, and Vladek

appears defiant, fit and healthy - an image which

is contrary to the conditions of Auschwitz that

Vladek has just reported (fig. 6).

Vladek's explanation of this image reveals that it

was taken after his release in a shop that took

souvenir photos.31 As with the other photographs

Hirsch (1992), p. 37 Spiegelman, Art, Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began, London. Penguin Books, 1992, p. 134

35

32

in lviarts, the true significance of this image is

revealed through narrative as it is only through

Vladek that we learn of his actual Auschwitz

expenence.

There are two features of Maus that can be related

to the concept of postmemory. Firstly is the

manner in which the photographs function

within this work. They function as a trigger to

memory and provide a basis for the narration of a

family history and a structure upon which this

history is recreated. Vladek's narrative has been

necessary to fill the gaps left b y their incomplete

representation of the past and has been vital to

Art's understanding of the events that have

shaped his family's history. The narrative in

Maus has extended the meaning of these

photographs beyond their surface and has been

necessary in reconstructing the past - through the

photographs themselves we would not have

learned of Anja's suicide, Richieu's death, or

Vladek's 'real' Auschwitz survival. Art's reliance

upon Vladek in order to recover the past, and his

use of the photographs to support it, confirms

what Hirsch has said of the photographs and

postmemory, that they 'affirm the past's existence

and, in their flat two�dimensionality, they signal

it's unbridgeable distance'.32

Secondly, the movement between past and

present, the juxtaposition of the drawn image

with the photographic, and the fictitious depiction

of factual events, can be seen as symbolic

references to the generational distance between

postmemory and the past, and the incongruity of

this position. The fictitious m anner in which Art

Spiegelman has chosen to represent factual events

also serves to support Hirsch's assertion that in

f:lirsch (1997), p. 23

36

postmemory, the past is not recalled but is

constructed through an imaginative investment

in the photograph by this generation.

Several comparisons can be made between Maus

and my investigation. Both respond to past

events in our respective family histories that have

been formative to our own sense of identity. In

both cases, the photographs and narratives

provided by our fathers are vital to our

construction of the past and our understanding of

our heritage. Spiegelman's creative

representation of the past can be likened to the

way in which my work has reinvented and

distorted the artefacts that are my source material.

My project is not concerned with an accurate

depiction of the past - it is concerned with the way

in which my father's account of the past is

mediated by his migration experience, and how

this mediated knowledge is passed down to me

and distorted further by my own projections.

The particular presence that my father's

photographs hold for me is attributed to the

photographs capacity to testify that the past was

real, and that because it is a representation of the

past, it signals what is no longer and what can

only be returned to via the photographic image.

Roland Barthes, in his book Camera Lucida,

addresses the poignancy of the photograph as an

image that elicits some of our most profound

emotional responses to the world and to people -

especially family. Barthes sets out to discover the

'essence' of photography, that is, that which

distinguishes photographs from other forms of

visual representation. Camera Lucida details his

quest to uncover this through his consideration

and analysis of many photographs. In the first

part of the book Barthes' study is predominantly

37

lJ

3..1

l5

36

that of images for public consumption, such as an

image of Queen Victoria for example. It is not

until the second part of the book where he turns

to images of a more intimate nature - those of his

mother - that he is able to articulate photography's

'essence'. One photograph in particular becomes

the determining image for Barthes - a childhood

image of his mother that he recovers shortly after

her death. Of the many photographs that are

reproduced i n Camera Lucida, this image is absent.

Barthes justifies this by arguing that only he could

realize the poignancy of this image and that many

would dismiss it as an ordinary, generic childhood

image.33 Barthes calls this the 'Winter Garden'

photograph and explains that it depicts his mother

and her brother as children standing in the winter

garden of their parent's home. For Barthes this is

the quintessential photograph both in its depiction

of his mother and because it becomes the one

photograph from which he derives the 'essence' of

all photography.

Barthes says that upon looking at the 'Winter

Garden' photograph he was 'overwhelmed by the

truth of the image'. 34 However, the 'truth' of the

image that overwhelms Barthes is not so much

that it is an accurate representation of his mother,

but that from it he cannot deny that she actually

existed in front of the lens of the camera. 35 From

this Barthes concludes that the 'essence' of

photography is that there can be no denying that

the 'thing-has-been-there'.36 It is therefore

photography's unique relationship to reality

where it is dependent on the real or actual

existence of its subject before the lens of the

Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, translated from the French by Richard Howard, London. Vintage Books, 1993, p. 73 Barthes (1993), p. 76 Barthes (1993), p. 77 Barthes (1993), pp. 76-77

38

37

camera In order for it to be produced, which

accounts for its poignancy as an image.

Where the photograph captures reality in an

instant, Barthes adds that it is also a record of the

past - an instant to which one can never return.

Barthes writes that when he looks at the

photograph he sees the subject, which 'has-been­

there', and realises that it is 'immediately

separated; it has been absolutely, irrefutably

present, and yet already deferred'. 37 The past tense

of the subjects 'having-been-there' indicates that it

is no longer - which not only suggests

photography's relationship to reality, but also

hints that it is also inextricably linked to the past.

The pastness of the photograph foreshadows the

eventual death of its subject, and as such, the

photograph serves as a ghostly trace of its subject,

reinforcing the irretrievability of the past.

My father's photographs are poignant reminders

that the homeland is lost, if indeed it existed at all

as he recalls it, and that it only survives in his

memories, stories and descriptions of the past.

Their significance within this investigation is

related to their capacity to signify both presence

and absence, and life as well as death.

Furthermore the images that my father brought

out from Croatia, have made it possible for me to

contemplate what is otherwise unseeable due to

time and geographical distance. These images do

not depict the homeland in realistic terms -

showing the hardship, the political situation, or

the effect of war. They are not 'snapshots' of the

day to day life in Croatia as my father knew it.

Rather they are posed and deliberate depicting a

decadence, wealth and beauty of the inhabitants of

Barthes (1993), p. 77

39

39

a mysterious, evanescent world. I have been intrigued by the way in which these photographic representations enshroud their subjects in mystery as if to conceal the truth behind the image. My f�scination with the subjects of the photographs and their original context, and the allure of the atmosphere created within these images, is a direct consequence of their presentation in this form.

This is contrary to the argument regarding photographic reproduction and ' deauraticization'

as presented by Walter Benjamin in his essay, "The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". Benjamin claims that the photographic reproduction of a work of art is damaging to the 'aura' it holds as an original work. He attributes the I aura' of an original work of art to its uniqueness and authenticity as an original work; its physical and material presence in its original form; and, its presence as an

historical object as it exists in its original context.38

Benjamin says that prior to its mechanical reproduction, an original work had the power to lure an audience, and that a reproduction

eliminates the need for an audience to travel to the work as a reproduction I enables the original to meet the beholder halfway'.39

Benjamin sees that a further threat to the 'aura' of an original work 1s where photographic technologies have the capacity to reveal aspects of

Benjamin, Walter, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", in Illuminations, New York, Schocken, 1969, p. 220 Benjamin (1969), p. 220

40

40

a work of art that would have otherwise gone

undetected by our natural, unaided vision. 40

Benjamin is concerned that the original work

loses its authority through such technologies as

these processes are the only way to access this

experience of the work. Where Benjamin claims

that photographic processes alter our perception of

reality by revealing what is otherwise concealed,

and stripping away the aura of that depicted, by

contrast, I argue that the photographs explored in

this investigation alter my perception of the

reality of the homeland by what they conceal

rather than reveal. These images present a view

of the homeland that is more aligned to the

idealised version I have inherited from my father

and the distortions I add to it, and as such, they

have the power to transcend reality. The 'aura' of

the subjects of the photographs for me is therefore

inextricably linked to their having been

photographed.

My father did not bring the photographs and

objects from his homeland when he first arrived

in Australia. He acquired these upon his only

return home following the death of his brother.

He has recalled how during this return home he

became aware of how the language of his home

had changed and evolved in the years he had been

away, and how because of his accent he was

regarded as a tourist in the country of his birth.

Benjamin (1969), p. 220. Here Benjamin gives the example of enlargement as one such technique. This is expanded further by Joel Snyder in his reading of Benjamin's essay where he suggests methods of photographic examination such as photomicrographic and photoflouroscopic investigations which have the capacity to reveal that which lay beneath the surface and between the layers of an original work. See Snyder, Joel, "Benjamin on Reproducibility and Aura: a reading of 'The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility"', in The Phi losophical Forum, Vol. XV, No. 1 - 2, Fall/ Wint

,er, 1983 - 84, p. 134

4 1

Not only was he displaced, this Croatia was not

the same place as he remembered it to be.

My father believed this would be his last return

home, which to this day has remained true, and so

he said goodbye to his family for what he believed

would be the last time. The items that he collected

to bring back to Australia can be seen as souvenirs

of a journey that would never be repeated, but also

as souvenirs of his homeland at the time when he

first departed Croatia - not the Croatia he had

returned to.

As souvenirs, these photographs and objects have

the power to evoke my father's memories of his

homeland at any given moment. For me, these

things come to life when they are accompanied by

my father's memories, stories, and descriptions,

through which I also partake in an imaginary

form of travel. One vivid memory I have of such

an instance was when, several years ago, I entered

the living room to find my father sitting in his

chair listening to one of his Croatian records. I sat

in a chair next to his listening in silence for some

time. W hile I could not understand the lyrics, I

gathered from the fast rhythm and the uplifting

beat, that it was a happy, festive, celebratory song.

Despite this, there was a heavy emotional

atmosphere in the room as my father sat

motionless, very deep in thought and silent.

When the music stopped, there was a short pause

before my father 'awakened', got up from his chair

and put the record away in its place in the glass

cabinet alongside other items he brought from

Croatia. I recall our conversation starting when I

asked him what Croatia was like. He described it

as an immensely fertile land where you could

grow anything you needed or desired, saying, 'you

could grow plums and all sorts of fruits the size of

my hand! (My father has enormous hands!) And

42

the taste and smell - so strong and sweet!

Nothing like what we have in Australia'. He

described it as a country of great natural beauty

where his family owned a considerable portion of

land that was like a beautiful pine forest. From

their farm, my grandmother would make her own

salamis, cakes, breads, and other delicious foods.

My father said I had his mother's hands and that I

reminded him of her. We looked at a photograph

- the group portrait with the backdrop - and he

spoke of his mother with great affection,

describing her as a very gentle and generous

woman. I asked him about the dresses she wore

in the photographs and he said he knew little

about them except that she would make many of

her own textiles and clothing by hand. I asked

him about the old lady that was seated in the

photograph nursing the baby. His face changed as

he spoke of her, calling her his 'bully'

grandmother, saying that he had never, in all his

life, met anyone as nasty as she. He recalled a time

when he and his brother were sent to do some

cleaning for her, and no matter how meticulous

they were, it was never good enough when they

had finished and she would make them continue

to work. He said in the end they would run away

from her and she would chase them, yelling and

screaming with all her might after them. My

father said he hated the noise she would make

more than the sounds of bombs dropping.

The capacity of these objects to serve as traces of

my father's experience and past, and to provide a

means of access to the homeland for both of us, is,

for me, the measure of their worth. Their value

as objects is not in their materiality but rather in

their ability to transcend it, and their significance

is not innate but ascribed.

43

41

42

43

This research has been influenced by texts that have considered objects of ascribed significance. Among the writers is Susan Stewart and her discussion of the souvenir in her book On

Longing. Stewart identifies the souvenir as an object that exists as a trace of experience and argues that it functions by fulfilling the desire of its owner to return to an irrecoverable past moment or an event 'whose materiality has escaped us'.41

Through her argument, Stewart reveals two aspects of the souvenir that are important sources of its power. Firstly she argues that the use of

narrative is an important source of the souvenir's power as it is only through narrative that the souvenir's significance as an object, connecting its owner to an experience or event, is realised.42 Stewart is suggesting that in the absence of narrative there would be nothing distinguishing the souvenir from objects of insignificance. Narrative is thus vital in preventing the object

from slipping into the realm of the ordinary, which Stewart says is the souvenirs ultimate fate, stating that�

The souvenir is destined to be forgotten; its tragedy lies in the death of memory, the tragedy of all autobiography and the simultaneous erasure of the autograph.43

Stewart connects the souvenir to memory and this

may be used to describe my father's relationship to the objects he brought out from Croatia, and to suggest how they facilitate his remembrance of his homeland, his past and his family. Stewart

Stewart, Susan, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, London. Duke University Press, 1993, p. 135 Stewart (1993), p. 136 Stewart (1993), p. 151

44

44

45

describes a reciprocal relationship between the

souvenir and its owner - the souvenir is

dependent on its owner's memory and narrative

to bring it to life, and in turn, the perpetuation of

its owner's memories is dependent on the

souvenir.

The first-generation's interest in the artefacts of

the homeland gives to these objects a second-life

through which they hope to reach the past.

Secondly, Stewart argues that for the souvenir to

maintain its power it must always remain

incomplete, because it is its incompleteness that

gives it its generative power - that is, its power to

generate narrative.44 Stewart explains this with

the example of a ribbon that is saved from a

corsage worn to a dance. She argues that the

ribbon does not only refer to the corsage of which

it was a part, but to the event and experience of

that which took place - that is, the ribbon comes to

represent the dance, the summer, and the

romance - an experience which cannot be

repeated 45 Stewart has suggested that the

souvenir exists as the partial remains of an event

or a past which cannot be returned to, and that as

such it comes to stand in for all that cannot be

regained rather than simply signifying what has

remained. Likewise, the artefacts from the

homeland have a 'presence' as the only remains

of the past, but also because they signal all that is

lost and irretrievable. With an incomplete

representation of the homeland, I have no choice

but to fill in the gaps my father's souvenirs leave,

creating an imagined totality rather than a factual

construction of the past.

Stewart (1993), p. 136 Stewart (1993), p. 136

45

46

47

For my father, these artefacts function like the

souvenir, that is, they are reminders of a precious

past, place or persons. For me, their significance is

different in that they operate as a substitute for

what is lost and left behind, for what can never be

returned to - a substitute for the past, the

homeland, and my father's family. These are the

only things that can offer me a tangible experience

of the things they signify. These artefacts echo the

presence of my father's family - the photographs

signify their presence before the lens of the

camera, and the costume and textiles echo the

trace of the hand of the maker, and the body of the

wearer. This presence resonates from them, and

as such, I ascribe significance to them which takes

them beyond their ordinariness as material forms.

In this regard, these artefacts are best described,

from my perspective, in relation to the concept of

fetishism.

Fetishism can be viewed from various

perspectives anthropological, Marxian or

Freudian, each of which have their own specific

concerns, but commonly, according to art

historian Hal Foster, they all refer to the fetish as

an object that is endowed with a special force or

independent life. 46

The word 'fetish' comes from words used in

relation to the cult objects of West Africa, the

objects used in witchcraft, and, the sacred status of

objects within Catholicism.47 Given the origins of

the term, it can be deduced that the significance of

the fetish as an object or material form is highly

subjective. This subjectivity may be that of a

group - such as the members of a cult or a religion

Foster, Hal, "The Art of Fetishism: Notes on Dutch Still Life", in Whiting, Sarah, Fetish, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1992, p. 6 Foster (1992), pp. 7-8

46

fig. 7

Jan Davidsz. de Heem,

Vase of Flowers, c. 1660,

oil on can vas, 69.6 x 56.5cm.

as the origins of the term suggest - or it may also

be that of an individual. Essentially, the significance of the fetish as an object is a projection of a belief of the beholder. In his essay, "The Art of Fetishism: Notes on Dutch Still Life", Foster says that in these paintings

a strange energy emanates from its objects [and as such] . . . the inert appears animate, the insignificant seems humanly, even preternaturally, significant . . . and the familiar becomes estranged.48

He suggests that the strange energy comes from the manner in which everything is rendered with the same intense detail and attention to surface, where everything seems unspoiled - even half eaten fruit, wilting flowers or a spilt chalice for example (fig. 7).

Foster (1992), p. 6

47

49

These paintings do not simply capture perfection

just before the point of its decay, they intensify and

overdramatise it, making it surreal. The equal

treatment of the surface of each object means that

there is no differentiation in their material value -

a gold jewel-encrusted chalice for instance is

rendered just as precious and valuable as fruit or

flowers. Foster argues that this shows an

irrational relation of value to objects - irrational

in the sense that it doesn't relate to their market

value as commodities - and this is characteristic of

the fetish.

In the same way that Foster argues the painters of

Dutch Still Lifes have imbued their subject with a

significance beyond their rational, material worth,

so are my works inflations of their original

subjects. I do not illustrate these artefacts or the

things they represent, but rather I enhance their

surfaces and invert their scale to the point where

they appear in a distorted form. This distortion

gives rise to the experience of the 'uncanny'

which, as Foster argues, is a feature of the practice

of a number of the surrealist artists. In his book

Compulsive Beauty, Foster defines the uncanny

as:

A concern with events in which repressed material returns in ways that disrupt unitary identity, aesthetic norms, and social order.49

As a movement that has been informed by such

things as psychoanalysis and dream interpretation,

it is often discussed as a practice that is drawn to,

and intrigued by, the return of repressed psychic

material. Foster's argument adds to this by

suggesting that a number of the surrealist artists

Foster, Hal, Compulsive Beauty, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1993, p. xvii

48

50

51

52

were concerned with the recovery of repressed

historical materials also. Foster argues that this is

evident in the Surrealists' interest in the

outmoded, that is, things such as ruins and the

discarded materials found in flea markets and

second-hand stores. Foster writes that at a time of

intense modernisation the 'outmoded' was

'brought to consciousness as a category' .50

Of particular relevance to this investigation is

Foster's description of how the repressed historical

material that is recovered through the surrealist

art practice becomes distorted upon its return

assuming a 'demonic guise' which can be seen as

'the sign of its repression'. Foster writes:

. . . once repressed, the past, however blessed, cannot return so benignly, so auratically -precisely because it is damaged by repression. 51

He cites the collage novels of Max Ernst which he

describes as 'overrun with monsters and

grotesques', as an example in which repressed

historical material returns under a new guise.

Created from 19th century book and catalogue

illustrations, Ernst creates a sense of unease and

nightmare through the depiction of implausible

scale and spaces (fig. 8, overleaf). In one analysis

of Ernst's work, his collage novels are seen as a

reaction against the bourgeois ideals of the 19th

century - his parent's generation - whereby he

reinvented the material that depicted the attitudes

of that time 'revealing the psychological

ramifications of the world they came from'.52

Foster (1993), p. 165 Foster (1993), p. 164 Scheede, Uwe M., The Essential Max Ernst, translated from the German by R. W. Last, London. Thames and Hudson. 1 o/12, p. 39

49

fig. 8

Max Ernst. collage from Une

SemRine de bonte, 1934.

The 'demonic' aspect of the return of repressed material in the surrealist practice can be likened to the distortions of the artefacts that occur in the works submitted for examination. My works do not simply reference these artefacts, creating a new cross-cultural context for them in order to describe their position as culturally displaced objects. Rather they are significantly altered and distorted, often producing discomforting and confronting outcomes. They symbolically depict, in their exaggerated, distorted, and at times confronting forms, the purgatorial and unbridgeable space between the past and homeland and the place of the present for the first-generation children of migrants. These artefacts haunt the spaces of this generation's imagination and the domestic space of their home - their haunting nature is where they exist as emblems of the dead rather than stand to immortalise the homeland and the family that were left behind.

The homeland only survives in memory and the imagination, and the central concern of this

50

project is the obsessive attempt by the children of

migrants to somehow revive and breathe life into

the artefacts before they slip into the more

objective realm of purely historical objects.

The following chapter provides a detailed analysis

of the works submitted for examination, and those

that have been pivotal to the development of this

project.

5 1

CHAPTER THREE

The Studio Investigation

This investigation has been undertaken through

the medium of printmaking, and as the project

progressed, the work developed further from the

two-dimensional traditional print, resulting in

three-dimensional works utilising the print and

other techniques that were derived from my

background in printmaking. The move to three­

dimensions occurred in three of the four works

that are based on my grandmother's skirt and this

was an important development as it created a

better relationship between the form of these

works and concepts behind them. The

significance I ascribe the photograph, and the

inflated perception I hold of my grandmother, is

made apparent in these works because the skirt is

made real and therefore has a physical presence

and tactility that is denied by the flatness of the

two-dimensional photograph.

Within this investigation, I have used screen,

lithographic, and etching processes, and in each

case, the image has been constructed through

meticulous detailed drawing. This was to impart

an obsessive quality to the works that would

reflect the obsessive nature of the project, that is,

my obsession with, and embellishment of, the

source material, and my relentless search for more

detail and information from it (and from my

father).

Collage has also been an important strategy within

this project, especially during the early stages of

the investigation. Collage involves manipulating,

52

writing over, and re-contextualising an existing

Image, and I saw this as a process that

corresponded to the way in which I was ascribing

new meanings to the artefacts that I was

investigating. I employed this process both in the

early stages of planning, such as a number of

lithographic prints where I would transfer

photocopied images onto stone and work into

them, and in the final construction of many of the

works. Initially I aimed to produce a more

seamless Image, and eventually sought to

simulate the disjunction that occurs through

collage, in order to reflect the fragmented nature

of my inherited history that was driving the

project. The process of collage has influenced the

way in which the final works were constructed

and resolved.

Several pieces produced during the first eighteen

months of the program mark the development of

the final works in both practical and conceptual

terms. These include a series of lithographic

prints dealing with the self-portrait and other

literal responses to the source material. The

following is a description of these pieces, along

with details of their production and an analysis of

their contribution to the direction of the project

and final works.

fig. 9

Karen Lunn

Double Portrait

1997

Uthograph

50 x 70cm

Double Portrait

This image is a self-portrait, drawn in profile with my gaze fixed ahead of me away from the viewer. The portrait was drawn from memory and

imagination - I did not rely on devices such as photographs or mirrors for accuracy in my self­

representation. In the background to the right of the portrait are forms of vegetation, again drawn

from my imagination, and to the left a darkened empty space. My right hand is raised as I move

between the two spaces, as if drawn to something that lies ahead of me outside the frame of the image.

The final print shows two layers of the same image; during the printing process I moved the paper off register by approximately one inch which created a shift between the two layers. This produced a shadowy double of my portrait,

resembling the effect produced in photographs

54

where the subject moves at the moment of

exposure.

It was drawn in response to my father's

description of his homeland as a plentiful and

fertile land - a paradise that flourished in both my

imagination and his - hence my reasons for

drawing from my imagination. The doubling or

shadowing effect of the portrait was intended to

refer to both an imagined sense of self - that is, one

that is separated from one's real or physical being ­

and the fragmented or double identity of the

multicultural subject.

I found that the success of the image as a

representation of the homeland, as an imaginary

construction, was not in its illustrative or pictorial

nature, but rather in the quality that the

overprinting imparted to it. The shadowy and

darker areas created alluded to an unknown and

mysterious space through an eerie suspension

created by the overlap of the double printing. This

use of the print medium became important to

subsequent works where I started to consider how

to create imagery through the layering that the

medium of print offered, rather than creating

imagery through illustration. Whilst the double

printing was intended to relate to the

multicultural subject and the shift between two

different realities, the outcome of this image was

the realisation that the technique had the ability to

represent this in such a way that the effect

surpassed the illustration.

fig. 10

Karen Lunn

Dress Print

1997

lithograph

75 x 55cm

Dress Print

This is an image of my grandmother's dress which was drawn from the photographic portrait of my grandmother and grandfather. The print was

made in response to the volume and brightness of the dress and its dominance within the photographic image. A lithograph depicts the dress as it is worn by my grandmother - full and

upright as if filled by her body - only she is absent

in this image. The dress fills the picture plane and its volume and brightness have been emphasized through my illustration.

The image was printed using four layers of black to create a rich tonal range from velvety black through to the brightest white where the paper

56

was left unprinted. Several layers have been

overlaid on the torso of the dress casting it in

shadow which pushes it further to the background

and serves to accentuate the luminosity of the

skirt.

After completing the image I realised that I had

not drawn the light as it fell on the skirt as a form,

but rather, that I had drawn the skirt as if light

emanated from it, that is, as if the light were an

internal rather than external source. The result of

this unplanned particular use of light transforms

the image from a pictorial representation to a

symbolic depiction.

Evaluating this work I had a greater

understanding of why this particular image held

such allure for me. Whilst I was drawn to the

skirt for its formal qualities - its volume, form and

decorative nature - I realised that I was

simultaneously drawn to the photograph itself, as

a referent of the real and as an artefact from the

homeland. Furthermore, through my

accentuation of some of the qualities of the skirt

depicted by the photograph I became more aware

that I was drawn to the photograph as a

representation of something that existed beyond

the ordinary and everyday.

57

fig. 11

Karen Lunn

Boy Father Holding a Batt

1997

Uthograph

72 x 47crn

Boy Father Holding a Ball

This image originated from another of my father's pre-Australia photographs: a group portrait of my

father with his sister and his older brother (fig. 12).

58

fig. 12

left to right: Steven Mato Stivicic

(my father), Tomislav Stivicic

(my uncle1 and Marica Stivicic

(my aunt), c 1937.

My father and his brother are each holding a small

ball and they are wearing identical outfits: a

double-breasted shirt, dark shorts, long socks and lace-up shoes. His sister is wearing a check dress and is holding a doll, which has been blurred by its

movement at the time of the photograph's exposure. Although, chronologically, this image predates the other portraits of my father with his siblings, the clothing is notably different - more

modern. I asked my father about this photograph and he said that relatives who had migrated to America had sent the toys and clothing as gifts, and that the photograph marked their reception of

these gifts and was sent as a thank-you.

I drew the image of my father to include his hands

holding the balL The background of the print depicts water, an unknown coastline, a compass rose and rhumb lines. This has been created

59

through the collage of photocopied images of early

maps. One compass rose is situated behind my

father's head like a crown, or a halo, with rays

emanating from its centre. The second rose IS

placed under his hands that clasp the small ball.

Looking at this photograph I imagined my father

receiving the gifts and wondering about the place

far away from which they came, and I considered

how visions of different worlds were conveyed

through stories and objects and how, as children,

we have a different relationship to the world

through scale. I read into this photograph the

curiosity and imagination that is characteristic of

childhood and sought to portray this in the print.

The image of my father as a child was not taken

during the act of play, nor did he look playful.

Indeed, there was no indication from this image

that he had a childhood in the playful and

innocent sense of the word, but rather that he was

faced with harsher realities as a child than I had

known.

Through my reading of this photograph, I became

aware how my interpretation of the past was not

shaped by my knowledge of it, but rather, by my

understanding of the present and the way I have

imagined the past. I then realized how much of

the past is seen through the eyes of the present

and this became important to my understanding

of the image of the homeland with which I was

working.

60

fig. 13

Karen Lunn

Small Red Dress

1997

colour lithograph

22.5 x 17an

Small Red Dress

Drawn back to the image of my grandmother's skirt, l decided to rework the image of the dress on a smaller scale, one that related, in dimensions, to its photographic source. In this print the skirt becomes even more dominant than before. Its scale is exaggerated by the torso of the dress which

is proportionately much smaller than the skirt as compared to the dress image produced in October of the same year. The skirt stands on its own, held up by its many layers. Using a crayon drawing on

the stone and working into it with a brush and a nitric acid and water wash, l created stronger

highlights by the removal of areas of tone. To the

left of the dress is a smaller article of clothing which floats in the dark background; made visible

6 1

fig. 14

Karen Lu.nn

Skirt Collage

1998

collage in journal

by the luminosity of the skirt. The radiance of the skirt also lights-up the textured ground beneath it

to reveal coastlines and a small sailing vessel which were transferred from a photocopy collage and reworked with crayon. The image was

originally printed in blue/black ink on white paper, and while this captured the strong sense of light in the image, it was a cold light which had

little allure. Finally I printed this image over part of a previous image, a four-colour lithograph

using a palette of warm reds. The use of colour gave the dress a warm, rich glow and gave greater depth to the image overall.

I found this image of the dress to be less nostalgic than the previous black and white image I had

produced in October. The relationship between the figure (dress) and ground (world), and the

smaller costume that hovers in the background,

locates this image in a space that is more surreal and confined to the imagination.

Skirt Collage

62

This collage is a skirt shape that has been created from magazine clippings of bridal gowns. My

approach to this collage was unique in relation to other works in regard to both technique and concept.

My intention was to create, quickly, an image in

response to the dress that did not involve much labour. Traditionally, I would spend a substantial

amount of time drawing images.

Whilst this dress image was inspired by the image

of my grandmother's dress, it was not intended to

be a direct illustration of it. Instead, this was conceived of as a representation of the skirt as

formed in idea or imagination. Created out of

images of wedding dresses, which are charged with ideals of beauty and perfection, this

representation is my own fetishistic projection

onto the skirt of my grandmother.

Through this collage I considered how I could

represent my grandmother's skirt in a less

illustrative way, in order to expand its range of associations and responses for the viewer, beyond

the descriptive. This led me to explore the dress through the detaiL

63

fig. 15

KarenLwm

Motif

1998

Black and white and colour

lithograph

Dimensions variable

fig. 16

Rose Motif

In March 1999 I produced a coloured drawing

42x41crn (fig. 16).

64

fig.17

This was a design for a key image that could be reproduced and multiplied to form a pattern. The drawing was based on the detail and contained three main elements:

1. The Red Rose A red rose drawn in profile is at the centre of the

image. Stems extend both left and right from this central image, connecting it to two halves of a rose in full bloom. The roses are drawn from a birdseye perspective. When this image was reproduced the two halves join to create one and smaller rose buds were drawn in the space surrounding the central image.

2. The Geometric Border

A geometric design was used along the top and bottom edge of this key image. It was drawn as two halves that would later join and complete the design when the pattern was repeated. The

geometric design was chosen as a typical example of the patterns used in Croatian embroidery and textiles.

3. The Wattle Design (fig. 17).

This design was less dominant than the rose design; drawn in pale green pencil and was a

65

design based on native Australian flora. It became

very stylized and was reduced to a simple line

drawing, where its reference to the Australian

Wattle became less obvious. The wattle design sits

above and below the rose pattern, both in front of

and behind the rose drawing.

The overall design of this key image was based on

the 'Garland and Rosette', a design used in

decorating Croatian textiles and clothing. The

'Garland and Rosette' was, typically, a series of two

or more garlands that lay above one another in a

wavy movement. The garlands sometimes

intertwined with and were usually framed by a

horizontal band above and below.

The rose is a common decorative device in many

cultures and was chosen for its representation of

beauty and the natural world. By juxtaposing

Croatian and Australian elements in this design, I

was aiming to juxtapose the different visual

experiences of the two cultures.

This work utilized decoration for its seductive

qualities and allure, and its ability to conjure up a

vision in the mind of the viewer - a romantic

vision that is based on ideals of beauty and the

decorative.

Originally, I intended this work to be installed in

an area with a function similar to that of

wallpaper, the idea being to create an

overwhelming interior domestic space. However,

I realised that this had little to do with the power

of the detail that was the original motivation for

this work.

In reevaluating this work I decided to install it as a

pattern on the wall. I selected a motif that was a

Croatian embroidery pattern of a rose, in keeping

66

with the theme of the work. From a distance, this

rose motif would dominate the work, whereas at

close range the pattern within the prints would be

the focus.

As a cross-stitch design, the individual stitches

were represented by squares. I decided to

reproduce this motif by segmenting the drawing

design and printing it in smaller components. I

photocopied the image onto A4 sized paper in five

parts; these were transferred onto a lithographic

stone and drawn into. They were printed as

individual images in black, blue/black, magenta

and transparent brown ink on grey, tan and white

papers. The variation in colour was to be used

compositionally in the motif design, by way of

example, the magenta was used for the head of the

rose, and the black was used to define its leaves.

After printing this, transparent grey tones were

overlaid in areas to add greater depth and contrast

and more definition to the image for viewing at

close range.

However, the work became too complex and

overloaded on many levels. The individual

components had the proportions of the portrait

photograph that posed some problems when

trying to reconstruct the motif design that was

based on the square. This made it more difficult to

reconstruct and it ended up being distorted.

This work was pivotal to the direction of the

project; it marks my departure from earlier

pictorial works and the time when I began to push

the boundaries of the two-dimensional print.

This was the first instance in which I used the

medium of print for the purpose of repetition. I

discovered a correlation between the repetition of

the print and my relentless and obsessive act of

looking and returning to the photographs, and

67

determined that repetition and obsession were necessary in conveying the perspective from which this investigation was undertaken.

My grandmother's skirt became the major focus of this investigation and is directly referenced by four

of the six works submitted for examination. The subject of my grandmother's skirt saw me move

from two-dimensional, illustrative printmaking, to three-dimensional, sculptural uses of the­

printed image. This was as much an exploration of the image of my grandmother's skirt, and

through it my perception of the homeland, as it

was an exploration of the photograph as a signifier of absence as well as presence. As the subject of

my curiosity, the skirt also became the symbol of

my desire - a desire to build a more complete picture from the fragments of the past.

68

fig. 18 Karen lunn

Fiw Skirts

1998 . 1999 lithop'aph and drawing backed

with aJumi:nNm

174 )( 160c:m

Fi'Dt Skirts

Previous explorations of my grandmother's skirt

had resulted in literal representations through

illustrative drawing. Skirt Collage was the first

move away from this way of working and led me

to this work. Five Skirts was an exploration of

ways of referring to the skirt that were less literal

than previous explorations - ways that would

hold the viewers' gaze and evoke a response from

them in relation to the materiality of the skirt as a

form, and ways that would more adequately

represent my obsession with it. I was constantly drawn back to the photograph of my grandmother

by the layering and folds of the skirt that make her

appear so statuesque. I wanted to suggest the

experience of the impenetrable layers of the skirt,

and the allure for the viewer of the image's dark

recesses. The repetition also alluded to my

repeated act of looking at the photograph.

69

6g.19 Karen Lunn

Fiot Skirts (detail)

I worked from five key images, each a tonal drawing of gathered fabric, to make reference to the photographic image. Each image measured 30cm in height and 21cm in width, keeping it within the same proportions as its source - the photograph (fig. 19).

These images were printed as layers over each other in transparent blacks and greys that were in keeping with the black and white photograph.

Their tonal range was enhanced further by the application of flat areas of very transparent tone.

While the photograph was the source for this

work, my images exaggerated the folds of the skirt as they appeared in the photographic image and were exaggerated further by the overprinting of the transparent layers. Through the overprinting

I saw that the prints had the capacity to take on a richness and subtlety of tone that would surpass

70

their photographic source, and I proceeded to draw

into them with a range of poly chromo pencils in

greys and muted greens and browns to enhance

this. Through the drawing I darkened areas of the

print which made them appear more hidden amid

the undulating skirt. In several images it became

difficult to decipher which was background and

which was foreground - in some sections the skirt

appeared opaque, and in others it became more

transparent revealing layers that were either

underneath or over the top.

The areas of the print that had been drawn into

had a sheen and smoothness that complimented

the fluidity of the imagery and gave the prints

more of a seductive quality. I rubbed the surface of

each print with beeswax to achieve this overall.

Through this the imagery had taken on an organic

quality where the folds of fabric could be read as

ribbons of kelp or grass by which you could be

surrounded and become lost. While there is

something inviting in the dark recesses of the

imagery of Five Skirts as if they contain the

possibility of penetrating beyond the density of the

folds, this mass remains impenetrable. It was

important that this work was removed from its

source - the photograph - through exaggeration,

and that it's surface was made more seductive,

because I was re-presenting the skirt - rather than

illustrating it - as the subject of my obsession.

I pinned this work to the wall of my studio in a

grid-like format using 48 prints - the overall

composition being 6 rows high and 8 rows wide.

Scale was determined by my own body size - the

work was to be both taller and wider than myself

so that it would fill my field of vision at a

relatively close range, as if to imagine I could

move through the layers. The arrangement of

each individual print was determined according to

7 1

tone - the lighter images were used in the lower right of the overall construction surrounded by

prints of a darker tone. Each image was pinned directly beside or above or below the others and no areas of wall could be seen, so the imagery could

flow, uninterrupted from one print to the next. \tVith this work I had departed from my

traditional way of working through pictorial representation, and it remained pinned to my studio wall for some time while I considered its

formal arrangement. During this time the sides of the prints began to curl inward as they were held

in place by pins at the centre top and bottom of the image. This created an undulation in the surface

of the work, mirroring the rhythm of the imagery which I decided to control by backing each print

with a thin plate of aluminium that had been

rolled, giving it a concave surface. The use of metal plates, which I associated with armor,

seemed appropriate given the statuesque image of

my grandmother from which this work was inspired. Up until this point I had been using

multi-coloured map pins, but I decided that their

multi-coloured heads were distracting to the work

and eventually used less obtrusive Escutcheon pins that looked very similar to dress making pins

and related to the subject matter of the work - the dress. The Escutcheon pins pierced through the

print at the top and bottom centre of the image

instead of holding it balanced against the wall as the map pins had done. I felt that piercing the print to hold it in place would compliment the

curling inward of the sides of the image - as if the work was responding to the pressure imposed by

the act of pinning it to the wall.

The final construction used 48 individual prints,

eight panels from left to right and six panels from top to bottom. This gave the work the overall

dimension of 160cm x 180cm.

72

fig. 20

Karen Lt11m

Zslatona/ My Gold

1999 - 2002

Screenprint on hand-made

Cotton rag paper

Height 290crn

Zslatona/ My Gold

Having returned to the image of my

grandmother's skirt, I produced a lithographic

print that was a drawing taken from a detail of the

lace edges of her skirts (fig. 21).

73

fig. 21

Karen Lunn

Untitled

1999

Lithograph and pen and ink

70 x54cm

fig. 22

I worked from a small area of the photograph,

approximately 1.5cm square (fig. 22), and produced

an image measuring 70x54cm.

Having already worked from this photograph several times, each time I was compelled to return

to it, I did so hoping to discover something new ­

something that I had overlooked previously. The

flat, two-dimensionality of the photograph, and its

74

limited capacity to provide information about the

past, made me want to enter the space of the

image in order to explore it beyond its surface.

Attempts of enlargement through photocopying

or within the computer, only served to confirm

the flatness of the photograph, and to dissolve the

visual information that was already there. In

response to this, the lithographic print I produced

was an image of the lace that was created in the

negative space.

The image was printed in black ink on white

paper and was printed over itself a number of

times in order to achieve a more intense and

decorative surface, and to represent the layering of

the lace edged skirts. With each printing, the

paper was shifted downwards resulting in a

downward ripple in the image. To achieve greater

depth I overlaid areas of flat transparent tone, and

worked into the prints with pen and black Indian

ink (see fig. 21).

Studying an area of wall where I had pinned

several prints one above the other, whereby each

image followed from one to the next without

interruption, I had the sense of being dwarfed by

the skirt and of standing at its base. This was in

keeping with my father's embellished description

of his mother and the inflated perception I

consequently held of her, where she existed in my

imagination, 'larger than life'. I decided to refer to

the skirt more directly and producing other panels

that defined a hemline. When used in

conjunction with the other prints, this work

became a representation of a skirt with a hemline

and no waistline so as to allude to a scale of the

skirt that was greater than the dimensions of the

printed image (fig. 23 ) .

75

fig. 23

Karen Lwm

Untitiled

1999

lithograph and pen and ink

199 x 270cm

I believed that this work was confined to the

illustrative and that despite the scale to which it

alluded it did not contain any of the sentiment

that was behind my making of it. I felt that this

could be rectified firstly by the use of an

alternative colour. I considered the preciousness

of the photograph as an image that was charged

with my father's emotion, and as an image that I

had injected with great significance as one of the

only signifiers of the homeland, the past, and my

grandmother. I had a conversation with my

father regarding some of the Croatian words I had

grown familiar with without knowing their

translated meanings. I had assumed the

translation of these words from the context in which they were used. My father refers to his

daughters as 1Zslatona' which I had assumed

translated to 1 my daughter' or 1m y girl', but

76

learned that it translated to something like 'my

gold'. I realised how my father's sentiments were

often disguised in this way, that he would

sometimes express his feelings in ways that we

would not be able to understand. From this I

decided to work with the title of Zslatona for this

piece and to reprint the image in gold ink. Gold

would allude to something that was extraordinary,

precious or ritualistic, in essence, something of

significance.

As well as changing the colour, I believed it

necessary to depart from the two-dimensionality

of the print and to give the skirt the form and

depth that was denied by the flatness of the

photograph. In order to convey this more

effectively I began to move into three dimensions

where I used hand-made cotton rag paper in

conjunction with the printed image, stacking

layers of paper under the prints in order to give

form to the work and to lift it away from the wall.

The move from two to three dimensions was an

important and challenging development within

the project. I was no longer illustrating the skirt

where it remained in an illusionary, pictorial

space, but rather, I was giving the skirt a real

material presence as a form that existed in real

space. Conceptually, the move into three­

dimensions was an important development as it

served to deny the photograph's signified absence

of the real, and was a way of imparting greater

significance to the skirt by giving it a real presence

as a form to be negotiated within a space by the

viewer. But even then, the relationship between

the printed image and the paper that was stacked

underneath it was not adequate, and I thought

that the work needed to become more animated

and have a greater authority (fig. 24).

77

6g. 24

Karen Lunn

Untitled lithograph with hand·made

Cotton -rag paper

1999

I screen-printed the lithographic image onto stacks

of the hand-made paper in gold ink. The ink

varied from transparent gold to solid opaque gold.

The paper had been sewn together and the

buildup of seams and folds produced irregularities

in the thickness of the paper that affected the

quality of the printing - sometimes it was faint

and at other times the ink would flood the image.

Where the paper overlapped, areas of white paper

were left. I welcomed this approach as it gave the

work a feeling of age and disintegration. This

transformed the paper into something more

precious and in vi ted touch.

The use of paper to suggest fabric, rather than the

use of fabric itself, was a key component of this work. I thought it necessary that, in its

transformation from two to three dimensions, it

had a material relationship to the skirt, but not a

literal material relationship to it. As such, the

78

53

cotton rag paper had a material relationship to the

cotton of the dress, but it also had different

properties to its original fabric form that occurred

in its transformation from fabric to paper. In this

regard, it was paper that acted like materiat53, or

mimicked it - it was not the real thing, but a

substitute for the real - a substitute but not a

replacement for the real.

Gradually this work moved away from the wall

entirely, and it started to take the form of the skirt

as I had drawn it in Small Red Dress (fig. 13).

While initially the dress-like form bulged out

from the wall, I was never able to achieve the

degree of volume that would give it the stately

presence the work demanded. I made more

paper I prints and a wooden frame that would be

attached to the wall to provide support and enable

the work to take on more form (fig. 25).

This was particularly so where I had folded and scrunched the paper, softening it so it would gather and drape as fabric does.

79

fig. 25

Frame made of laminated pine ribs.

1999

I considered various methods of display such as

laying it on its side rather than keeping it upright, however I thought that this would be too inactive

in a space and that it would evoke a mournful

reading of the work. I believed that such a reading would be inappropriate as this work was about

denying loss and death through the use of a substitute; by bringing the image of my

grandmother's skirt into a third dimension, and giving it the tactility that is suggested in the

photograph.

The frame was successful in providing more

volume to the skirt, although I decided that as long as it remained attached to the wall and

incomplete as a form it would read as a fragment of the skirt - that is, something that was partial to

it, rather than a reinvention of it (fig. 26).

80

ft&. 26 Karen Lunn

l.Nttmt�/ My Gold

ln f""'l'8J b80 2«XXJ.

It became increasingly important to me that the skirt had a confronting presence through the 'new

life' it had been given as a three-dimensional

form, and that it appeared to have an independent

'life force' in the absence of a body. I felt it was

therefore necessary that its structure and support

should come from within rather than be

dependent on the wall. To make it a complete

form would not only suggest the possibility of it

being occupied by a body but it would also give it

more authority as a form. I therefore decided to

make more paper I prints, a second half to the

wooden frame, and a stand for it, in order to turn this piece into a freestanding work. I hung sheets

of paper and prints from the stand in order to give

the sense of the layering of the underskirts, as they

appeared in the photograph.

The scale of this work, and emphasis on the bulk

of the skirt, was important in order to achieve a

feeling of monumentality and to overwhelm the

viewer. There is something discomforting in its

81

monumentality and the way in which it appears

to defy gravity. There is weight and heaviness in

the mass of the skirt, yet at the same time -

through the layering of paper at its base - it is not

weighed down to the floor, but rather, pushes up

from it, as if floating.

The obsessive nature of this work was important

to the project, as it was an ongoing concern with

all the works. The feeling of obsession was not

only achieved through the exaggerated scale and

the materiality of the form of the skirt, but also

because this work was not only an oversized skirt,

but also hundreds of prints and hand-made paper.

The change of the colour of the image from black

to gold, the quality of the handmade paper and the

change from two to three dimensions, were

starting to work in creating what could be

described as a fetish object.

82

fig. 27

Karen Lunn

Light Dress

1999 - 2002

Hand-made paper and lights

Dimension and form variable

fig. 28

Karen Lunn

Light Dress (detail)

Light Dress

I started to produce another piece that related to

the lace of my grandmother's skirt at the time I was working on Zslatona. This work was

83

motivated by the spectacle of the skirt as a

decorative object, and the light that emanated

from the skirt in my previous graphic depictions

of it.

I created over 100 paper doilies from cotton rag

and recycled pulp. These were formed in a shape

that mimicked that of the lace at the base of the

skirt. I created decorative patterns in each doily by

using a set of hand-held leather hole punchers.

The punchers varied in diameter and enabled me

to produce a variety of patterns. Prior to this, I had

tried to create patterns through watermarks, but

these were only visible at relatively close range

and when the paper was backed by light, and failed

to take on the quality of the lace, which was

achieved through the perforations. The patterns

created within the doilies were at first loosely

based on the photograph but became random after

some time as I realised the effect this would create

and the association it would have with the lace

were more important than replicating it as it

appeared in the photograph.

This work went through a series of changes before

it reached its final form.

I wanted to allude to the pride that my

grandmother exuded in the photograph, and felt

that this could be achieved if I could fix the doilies

to stand up-right, like the feathers of a peacock's

tail, or fan (fig. 29).

84

6g. 29

journal sketch

fig. 30

book form trial

54

I was also interested in this form of display as I

saw an association between the doilies I had made and the feathers of a rare and beautiful bird, which

related to the allure of the exotic in the

homeland.54 Initially, I thought an open book

form would have a similar effect. I tried to

achieve this using a concertina spine that would

expand when opened (fig. 30).

This aspect of the work was, in part, shaped by Hans Gercke's article, "Exotic Worlds: European Fantasy", a commentary on The Stuttgart Project Exotic Worlds - European Fantasies, which comprised of a series of exhibitions staged in West Germany in 1987. As the title suggests, the central theme of the project was exoticism and covered architecture, visual art, theatre, souvenirs and collectibles, among other things. Gercke says that the 'exotic kitsch' that was featured in the main exhibition, ' all amounts to the search for lost paradise', and I saw that this related to what I was doing -that I was in search of something intangiable, that existed in my own mind, beit an image of my grandmother's skirt, or of the homeland. See Gerke, Hans, "Exotic Worlds: European Fantasy", in Art and Australia, Autumn 1996, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 474-475.

85

fig. 31

frame

This proved to be unsuccessful as the doilies, that I

had stitched in the valleys and peaks of the spine,

had no internal support to enable them to stand

upright, and the form collapsed under the weight

of the paper. In addition to its structural failure,

the book was unsuccessful in other ways. Firstly,

as a book I felt this form implied . that it was

something to be handled, where the 'pages' were

turned and the book 'read'. It also implied that

there was a purpose in turning the pages - that

information would be gained or something

revealed, however, the doilies had not been

designed for this purpose and so there was

nothing to be 'revealed'. Secondly, there was no

pleasure in handling the doilies, and I felt this

would work against this piece.

Deciding that this piece should be viewed rather

than interacted with, I considered other ways in

which to emulate the proud display of the

peacock's tail. After several drawings and small­

scale models that represented the form I wanted to

create, I made a lattice-like wooden frame as a

support for the work (fig. 31).

However, I was unable to resolve this work using

the frame - not only did it pose too many

technical problems, I felt the success of this work

would rely on a simple solution whereby the

paper could take on a form that would be

independent of a rigid structure. I wanted this

86

work to have more of an organic quality where it

took on a life of its own, suggesting movement

and growth that came from within its own

materiality, which was independent of a

supporting structure.

I had concerns regarding the quality of the doilies I

had produced. Compared to their source - the

appearance of the lace on the skirt in the

photograph - they were awkward and clumsy, a

satirical representation or imitation of the real. I

believed this quality worked in opposition to the

concept driving the work, and so I looked for a

solution that would see the doilies transcend their

materiality. I returned to my original reasons for

undertaking the work and revisited my earlier

prints depicting the dress that had led me to

embark on this piece, and reconsidered how my

particular use of light when illustrating the skirt

had turned it from an illustration into a symbolic

representation.

I decided that light should have a more

prominent role in the work, and that a solution

would be found through investigating the use of

light with the paper doilies. I discovered that

through backlighting the doilies were transformed

from their ordinariness, and from their clumsy,

weightiness, into something more ephemeral.

The paper acted like a mask to the light, and its

decorative image was created by light passing

through the perforations, or negative spaces,

producing something that was akin to an

afterimage. The focus was thus directed away

from the paper and toward the light and the

glowing effect created. This was more in keeping

with my fetishised projection of the skirt in my

earlier drawings where the light emanated from

within, rather than illuminated the skirt

externally.

87

55

I finally resolved this work in the form of a wall

piece where the doilies were arranged as a

swirling, organic mass; an abstract reference to the

skirt as if it were caught in motion. I had decided

that it was unnecessary to construct a particular

form from the doilies, but rather, that the

associations with the skirt were strong enough in

themselves and that the visual effect that would

be created was integral to the work. The

resolution of the work can be likened to Toulouse­

Lautrec's studies of Marie-Louise Fuller, an

American dancer who became infamous with her

swirling skirt and veil dance at the Folies-Bergere

in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century. It is

clear 1n the descriptive accounts of her

performances, that her spiraling veils, which were

said to metamorphose into things such as

butterflies and orchids, would captivate her

audience to the point where they would question

whether or not what they were seeing was real. 55

In Toulouse-Lautrec' s depiction of her, the veils

are a swirling mass containing a life and energy

that overwhelms Fuller's body (fig. 32).

Jean Lorraine, in his bookPoussieres de Paris, remarked: 'Was it a dance? Was it a projection of light or an invocation of some spirit?'. See Freches-Thory, Claire, "Stars", in, Toulouse-Lautrec, London, Paris: South Bank Centre, Reunion des museesnationaux, 1991, p. 304.

8 8

fig. 32

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

Loie Fuller

1893

lithograph using brush and spatter

36.8 x 26.8crn

While one would assume from Toulouse­

Lautrec' s other works that he has depicted her

performing on stage, the dark mass in the lower

right-hand cor11er of his lithograph could equally

be read as a landscape where she appears to be

lifted into the night sky, consumed by her veils.

While I had arrived at the form of display for

Light Dress independently of Toulouse-Lautrec's

lithographs of Fuller, his depictions were

nonetheless important to the work. His prints

confirmed for me that such a display would not

only be evocative of the spectacle of the dress, to

which I wanted to allude, but also, of the sensation

of being absorbed and fascinated by it.

As a writhing mass, the attention was focused on the skirt itself as an independent form - not its

89

implied wearer. The quality the backlighting gives

to the paper, and the glow of the work within the

darkened space, creates an enchanting and

bedazzling effect. I believe that this is more

representative of my fascination with the image of

my grandmother's skirt, and my imagined

encounters with it as a form, than previous

attempts to resolve this work had conveyed.

90

fig. 33

Karen Lunn

Red Dress, 2001 -2002,

Red Dress

Etching and w atercolour, 222 x 55 em

9 1

This work is an etching that depicts a section of

the image used in Zslatona. This image was

printed in two layers, the first in a golden orange

coloured ink, and the second, which was printed

over the first and slightly off-register, in a rich red.

Prior to printing, I tinted the paper with a water­

colour wash in like colours.

The intense, hot red colour of this work was to

represent the emotional and passionate aspects of

the project. Up until this point, all of the works

produced were deliberately monochromatic in

response to their source - the black and white

photograph. Having recognized how vital it was

that the work contain the sentiment of this

investigation, I decided to make use of intense

colour for my purpose. With the skirt as the

subject, I intended this work to relate to sentiment

through bodily experience, that is, as though the

image was an impression of the skirt on the

surface of the skin, or something rising from

within the body and appearing on it's surface. The

etching process was important to this reading of

the work as it entails the image leaving a physical

trace in the metal of the copper plate - like scars

and impressions left in the skin of one's body.

I created this work with a view to its relationship

with Zslatona, and saw it as both a depiction of

Zslatona's interior, and of my imagined contact

with my grandmother's skirt. For this reason I

produced this work in a portrait format, and

restricted the length of the image area to

approximately that of my own height.

92

fig. 34

Karen Lunn

umdscapd Fanta5y

1999 - 2002

lithograph and drawing

266 x 327 em

fig.35

Karen Lunn

umdsarpt/ Fantasy (detail)

Landscape/Fantasy

93

I began to consider the studio setting of my father's photographs and saw it as instrumental in

masking the reality of the homeland. One photograph in particular presented a romanticised

view of the homeland which formed the basis of

this work - the group portrait depicting my father's parents, grandmother, aunt a�d sister. I set out to re-present the atmospheric backdrop that

had been used in the taking of the photograph.

Four separate images formed the basis of the work.

The first image was drawn with rubbing ink

which produces soft, smudgy areas of tone. This was used predominantly as a layer of tone to the

other images.

The second image was a detailed drawing of a

mass of leaves that float unrealistically on a

clouded background. The leaves dominate the lower half of the image and a smaller mass grows,

in the opposite direction, in the upper left hand

corner. This was drawn from my imagination and

was not intended to allude to a real geographical terrain but rather suggest a fantastic landscape.

The third image was based on the clouded

background of the second print and was drawn as a field of small open circles in order to produce a

grainy effect, like the enlarged areas of a

photograph. The circles varied in diameter and

covered some areas of the stone more densely than others, producing the tonal variation within this image. The result was a very intense and claustrophobic space.

The fourth image was very atmospheric and depicted masses of cloud that were drawn using

the side of a crayon. This was less dense and

claustrophobic than the previous image.

94

These images measured 66.5 x 54.5cm and were

printed onto BFK grey cotton paper using a silver­

based ink which had been tinted with either blue,

black or green. The silver-based ink had the

appearance of graphite and a tone that was in

keeping with that of the photograph. Some of the

images were printed as layers for one print, at

other times they were used as an image in their

own right.

Twenty-four of these images are used in the final

work. They are arranged in a grid measuring 6

images across and four images high. No wall is

visible between each image in order to produce a

seamless image overall. The overall dimensions

of this work are 266 x 327cm.

This work moves between representation and

decoration, just as I believe the photograph from

which it was derived does. The landscape to

which it makes reference is an imaginary

landscape, situated somewhere in the homeland.

It moves in and out of focus and the vegetation

confuses the. viewer by its swirling growth in all

directions.

I drew into areas of this work with grey

polychromo and graphite pencils. This served to

distinguish between areas of foreground and

background, and to introduce moments of clarity

and to create a point of entry for the viewer. This

was an important consideration as I did not want

this work to be read as a backdrop as this would be

too passive. Furthermore, the backdrop in the

photograph had become the focus for this work,

and so the work needed to be given more

authority in order to portray this. I particularly

focused on the prints that depicted foliage. I

darkened the clouded background which pushed

95

fig. 36

Jean Honore Fragonard,

The Swing (detail).

the foliage to the foreground of the image. The

drawn sections covered parts of the printed image

producing areas that absorbed the light against

those that reflected it. This is akin to the effect of

solarisation and produces a surreal quality, thus

locating the landscape in an unreal space. The

metallic ink makes it difficult to view the image

from all angles. This was to refer to the

impenetrable surface of the photograph. The

colour and the sense of light in this work i s

reminiscent o f the enchantment of moonlight yet

it neither alludes to the reality of nightlight nor of

daylight.

While this work was predominantly based on the

photograph, it was also influenced by the painting

The Swing, by Jean Honore Fragonard (fig. 36).

As discussed in chapter two, I liken the fertile and

Edenic garden, in which the scene of this painting

is set, to my father's description of his homeland.

Although Fragonard's landscape i s not simply a

romanticised version of the natural world, but a

fantastic projection of it, the life and energy

present in the atmosphere and the foliage is

overwhelming and mysteriously inviting, but also

powerful and volatile. I thought the fantasy

96

element of Fragonard's garden related to this work

because of this hallucinatory quality.

Furthermore, Fragonard's depiction of the dress

worn by the lady on the swing, mirrors the form

and movement of the atmosphere in the

background, and contains the possibility of

overwhelming the subjects in the wor1c just as the

background does.

97

fig.37

Karen Lunn

Map

2001 - 2002

VVaxed lLnen thread

Dimensions and form variable

fig. 38

Karen Lunn

Map (detail)

Map

The idea of mapping had long been of interest within this

investigation. In the first year of the program, [ had

produced a lithographic print that was loosely based on

the idea of creating a portrait of someone - and an image

of the world - by reconnecting the fragmented remains of

the past, be they material artefacts or immaterial such as

memories and stories (fig. 39).

98

6g.39

Karen Lunn

Mlrp Print

1997

lithograph

60 x 49on

fig. 40

My studio waJl, August, 2001.

This was not clearly evident in the work that

depicted a web-like mass of lines within a

decorative mirror frame. I did not pursue this any

further, and I realise now that at that point in this

investigation I was not yet ready to continue with

that line of inquiry. This image became pinned to

my studio wall, and over the years fragments of

images, photocopies and things I had collected

along the way, surrounded it (fig. 40).

99

fig.41

portrait of my father taken from

the document registEring him under

the Aliens Act (1947 - 1952).

The print, and the wall that was created around it,

prompted me to reconsider working with the idea

of mapping and led me to question my father

about his journey from Croatia to Australia. I

asked my father to tell me details of his travel -

when and how he left Croatia, which cities he

went through and why, and why he decided to

come to Australia instead of Canada. The contents

of his suitcase had already provided some

information as it contained papers that

documented his journey of migration. Among

these are his registration papers from a camp at

Lintz in Austria. These contain traces of his initial

request, which was granted, to go to Canada. This

was crossed out and Australia was scribbled in its

place. There was also a card registering him under

the Aliens Act (1947 - 1952), issued by the

Australian Immigration Department.

This contained a passport-size photograph (fig. 41),

and information such as his date of arrival in

Australia, the name of the vessel on which he

came out, and his personal details, such as his

name, date of birth, and physical description. All

100

56

of these things were a fragile, disintegrating trace

of his journey. My father was able to fill in the

gaps left by the documents in his suitcase, but

what began to interest me equally was the way in

which the order of his memories was not

chronological, and also how some aspects of his

journey were dead y inscribed in his memory -

such as the date he arrived in Austraiia and the

names of some of the places that mapped his

journey of migration - and at other times his

memory of places and events was very faint. I

started to write things down, wanting to make

them more permanent and was overwhelmed by

the selectivity and fragility of memory.

I created a work that is in effect a map detailing my

father's journey. The sources of this work are

geographical maps of some of the places he

recalled and the documents from his suitcase. I

wanted to produce a map that was more like a web

that held onto these fragile memories. I produced

a series of pieces made of black waxed linen thread

that were woven and stitched and knotted in

order to create an image. These images were both

freehand and traced from a photocopied source,

such as my father's documents or map references

for example. Areas of these pieces began to

remind me of vessels and veins within the body

and I considered this relationship to my father's

internalised experience of migration as he had

expressed to me. I decided to refer to this more

directly and so I produced two pieces that were

based on anatomy illustrations, one of a tree-like

blood vessel, and the other a heart wrapped in

muscle (fig. 42).56

These images were based on two reproductions from the Diderot Encyclopedia: The Complete Illustrations 1762 - 1 777, Vol 1, New Yor� Harry N. Abrahams Inc, 1978, pp. 102 and 111.

1 0 1

fig. 42

Image of heart from Diderot

Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, 1978,

(p. 111)

. \ .1!:1 • 3 .

There is something ominous in their colour and

fragility, as they take on the feel of charred

remains. Furthermore they cast ghostly shadows

which become metaphors for the fading of

memory itself, and the removal of postmemory

from real or first-hand experience. These shadows

appear as distortions of the woven images, and are

related to the ways in which I have distorted the

source material of this investigation.

Having discussed my work, I now turn to artists

whose works are related to mine. The following

chapter acknowledges similarities and differences

between this investigation and other art practices

which serves to define the contribution this

research makes to the field of visual arts.

102

CHAPTER FOUR

57

58

Related Art Practices

At the start of this investigation I worked

predominantly with traditional two-dimensional

printmaking. At this time I surveyed the work of

other printmakers whose work shared similar

conceptual concerns to mine. I found a history of

printmakers within Australia who have explored

in their work either their own direct experience of

migration, or that of their parents, and how

cultural difference has shaped their sense of

identity. 57

The approaches to this subject within print are

varied. Some artists have worked very literally

and directly, such as Salvatore Zofrea for example

who produced a series of twenty woodcuts titled

The Journeyman where he records aspects of his

family history and migration experience.58

Although this series of prints specifically

documents the experience of Zofrea and his

family, it can be seen to represent an experience

that is common to many migrants - the risks

taken, the loneliness endured, and the hard work

and struggle to rebuild a new life in a foreign

place.

These practices may be traced from the 1960's onwards. The late 1940's and into the 1950's saw Australia's biggest influx of migrants who had fled their war-torn and politically oppressed homes in Europe. From this array of non-English speaking backgrounds a number of artists working in print emerged and were instrumental in developing a strong printmaking presence within art institutions and art practice throughout Australia. The series begins with the moment his parents meet in Italy, and covers their story of migration to Australia and the life they established for themselves, and concludes with the death ofhis parents.

1 03

59

Other printmakers have dealt with this subject in less literal ways, preferring instead to represent the effects of migration. In the work of printmakers Udo Sellbach and Jan Senbergs, who migrated to Australia from Germany and Latvia in the 1950's respectively, there is a sense of isolation and alienation that can be seen to relate to their migration experience. Senbergs' prints focus on an unwelcoming landscape of a dark, desolate, and industrial nature. By contrast, Sellbach's focus is on the lone, contorted figure which is often depicted against a vast, isolated landscape - their contortion reading as the result of the torment of their isolation and loneliness. In both instances, the work of Senbergs and Sellbach can be seen to reflect their sense of cultural displacement as migrants.59

Similarly, in the work of George Baldessin, who migrated to Australia from Italy with his father at the age of ten, the desire to reinvent one's self can be seen where he depicts figures of assumed identities such as performers, dancers, and acrobats. Like Sellbach's figures, Baldessin's characters are often in absurd and impossible poses to the point where they become disjointed and fragmented. Most often his figures appear isolated, even where they exist in groups, and he creates a great tension where he contorts their bodies so as to contain them tightly within his pictorial space. Baldessin's manipulation and fragmentation of his figures, both anatomically

and in personage, can be seen to represent his own sense of fragmentation and the tension associated with his placement between two cultures.

Their respective practices canbeseenas a response to a time of greater racial intolerance where the Federal Government's immigration policy of assimilation advocated that migrants abandon their parent culture and adopt that of the dominant Anglo-Saxon group.

104

While the migrant and their expenence 1s an

important aspect of my work, it is the perspective

of the first-generation children of migrants, and

their perception of the home land of their parents,

with which my work is more directly concerned.

The experience of the first-generation children of

migrants has been explored in the work of Vera

Zulumovski. Born in Australian of Macedonian

parents her relief prints literally bring together

aspects of both cultures in their highly detailed

and decorative surfaces. Her prints have a strong

narrative and she characteristically depicts

Macedonian rituals and customs or stories relating

to her family history within an urban Australian

setting. Zulumovski's work documents the

continued practice of rituals and customs of a

European culture within an Australian

environment, and her experiences as a first­

generation Australian growing-up between the

two cultures. My works are a response to the

complexity of such a situation and they do not

bring together aspects of two different cultures in

order to depict their coexistence within my family,

but rather, they relate to the effect of this cross­

cultural experience on my perception of the

homeland as a first-generation Australian.

Another major component of my work is related

to memory, most particularly my second-hand

memory of my cultural heritage, that is, the stories

and memories of my father that have been passed

on to me by way of informing me of my family

history. Where some of Zulumovski's prints are

informed by stories of Macedonia that have been

passed down to her, she illustrates them rather

than comments upon their second-hand nature

and the effect of this on her perception of the

homeland and the past.

105

A more direct exploration of the complexities of the cross-cultural situation of the first-generation children of migrants is found in the work of Milan Milojevic. Milojevic is of Yugoslav and German descent and his upbringing within an environment that was intolerant of migrants saw him bury his European background under a more "Australian" exterior. His early prints that collage together references of his Yugoslav/ German heritage, and photographic images of his parents and their migrant experience, can be seen as his attempt to reclaim this heritage and reconstruct his cultural identity. While this work is revealing of his parent's experience, it has a strong

autobiographical base as it is his response to the racially intolerant environment that he grew-up

in and its effect on his identity as a first-generation Australian. My work is also autobiographical in the sense that it is an exploration of my perception of the homeland, and my projection of significance onto the photographs and objects that signify that it once existed. The use of family photographs and the tactile remains of our cultural heritage are important source material for

both our works, however our use of them is very different. Milojevic's use of the photograph can be seen as more documentary in nature, that is, the images he uses are not far removed from their

original state and are easily identifiable as being of photographic origin. By way of contrast, my works are explorations of my father's photographs where I have exaggerated and distorted their contents changing their meaning entirely.

Milan Milojevic's more recent works use manipulation to a greater extent where he constructs imaginary, hybrid creatures through the juxtaposition of incongruous features, such as the head of a deer on the body of a bird, or a double-

106

headed boar. These can be seen as metaphors for

cultural displacement and his own hybrid identity.

Furthermore this work is inventive in the

construction of another world, one which can

only exist in the imagination.

The imagination of the first-generation has been

largely unexplored in the work of many artists. It

is through the imagination that we are able to

conjure-up the world from which our parents

came and the far away distant lands with which

we have a connection. The existence of this place,

which comes to be described as the homeland, is

confined to the realms of memory and

imagination and has been a central concern of my

investigation.

These artists are a small representation of

printmakers whose work reflect their own cross­

cultural experiences, be it their direct experience of

isolation, alienation, displacement and

fragmentation of the self through migration, or

their experience as a first-generation Australian.

These artists represent a starting point in terms of

my thinking and of the art practices that were

most relevant to me at the start of my research.

These issues have been important to my practice,

and continued to inform my work as I focused on

the artefacts from my father's homeland more

specifically - an investigation that was partially

fuelled by the artefacts cultural displacement

within my Australian environment. At this point

these issues were no longer the subject of my

investigations but rather were part of my reasons

for undertaking this research. As my work

progressed towards sculptural uses of the print I

became interested in the cross-over between image

and object and other artists became pertinent to

my research.

1 07

There are particular artists whose practices stem

from their own cross-cultural position who relate

more specifically to aspects of this investigation

than others, and for this reason they have been

the first selected for discussion here. They include

Elizabeth Gertsakis, Wilma Tobacco and

Domenico de Clario. Following. this is the

discussion of another group of artists who have

been important to this research project, and

provide a further context for this investigation.

These artists include Christian Boltanski, Joseph

Cornell and Ann Hamilton. The materials they

use in their works, and the spaces they allude to,

are related to my use of the artefacts from my

father's homeland and the significance I ascribe

them within this investigation.

Australian artist and writer Elizabeth Gertsakis

was born in Australia to migrant parents and has

been concerned with issues associated with

migration and multiculturalism throughout her

career. Of particular relevance to this research is

her early work titled, The Shoebox Signifiers,

where she presents her parents' pre-Australia

photographs alongside her own narrative which

reads like an interpretation of each image.

Through her descriptive child-like expression she

relays her difficulty in translating the appearances,

gestures and objects of the past into the present, as

she tries to find meaning within the flat, two­

dimensional image. An example of this can be

seen in the text accompanying Photograph No. 3 (fig. 43).

108

fig. 43

Elizabeth Gertsakis

Photograph No. 3

1985

black and white photograph

This is a portrait taken on her uncle's wedding day and depicts a young married couple standing behind Gertsakis' grandmother who is seated in front. Gertsakis' text reads as follows:

Again, as with the other photos, there is no background, nosense of place or context. Very worrying ... My uncle's hair looks strange ... what are all the dried up bits of grass doing on his suit? ... Why is he holding grass in his hand? ... It was a very long time ago. My grandmothers shirt is open. Her hands and scarf are special. Her hands are her character, her meaning, her life ... The most beautiful and important thing in the picture is the scarf. It is black and silky. It is very expensive and the tails are moving in the

1 09

61

62

63

breeze. Why aren't the grasses moving? The scarf is her vanity and sits strangely with her hands.60

This is characteristic of all her texts which reveal

her search for knowledge through the photograph

and its inability to adequately provide it. In her

article "Out of the Box", Gertsakis describes how,

as a first-generation Australian, it was through

these photographs and her parents' accompanying

stories, and the memories they would recall, that

she gained knowledge of her family history .61

Gertsakis says that this knowledge was acquired in

a condition of absence, that is, the absence of any

real or first-hand experience of the people or the

place depicted in the photographs.62 This absence

may be seen to account for her inability to fully

understand the images. The only real experience

Gertsakis has of her family, the homeland and the

events of the past, is through the photograph, its

accompanying narrative, and what she describes as

the 'emotional aura' that was generated by her

parents' discussion of it. 63

The Shoebox Signifiers is relevant to this

investigation as it expresses the perspective of the

first-generation children of migrants and their

experience of learning of their heritage through

the fragments of the past. It also serves as an

example of the condition of post-memory, or

second-hand remembrance, which has been

central to this investigation. In both cases the

photograph is a source of knowledge, which is also

an absence of knowledge, and the memory

connected to it is second-hand, that is, it does not

come from our actual lived experience. Gertsakis'

Gertsakis, Elizabeth, "Out of the Box . . . Skepticism, Education and Italian Shoes for Men", in Paper Burns, No. 4, 1985, p. 12 Gertsakis (1985), p. 10 Gertsakis (1985), p. 10 Gertsakis (1985), p. 10

1 1 0

quesefor knowledge·-arld meaning irt LeVery. detail of the photographs confirms that this form of remembrance is often obsessive and relentless. My work is also obsessive and relentless which may be seen in its detailed, hand-rendered surfaces and repetitive elements, and in the way in which a substantial part of this investigation has been

focused on my grandmother's skirt. However, I have used the absence that is signified by the photograph in a way that can be distinguished from Gertsakis' use of it in The Shoebox Signifiers .

Where the flat, two-dimensionality of the photograph becomes a point of frustration for Gertsakis as something that cuts her off from the past, the very absence of knowledge and the absence of the real have provided me with a point of entry to a world that exists more in idea than in reality. In this investigation, the photograph has become a site for an imaginative investment which is the direct result of the absence that it signifies. While, for Gertsakis, the lack signified by the photograph acts as a point of closure, within my investigation, this is overcome through the imagination, and by the transformation of the

photograph into a three-dimensional form. In this regard, while there is a direct correlation

between Gertsakis' position and my own, and the use of our parents' pre-Australia photographs to express it, the outcomes of our works are very different.

A relationship may be seen between the outcomes of my project and the work of Australian artist Wilma Tabacco. Wilma Tabacco was born in Italy and migrated to Australia at four years of age with her family. I attended an artist talk delivered by Tabacco at the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart in 1999. I recall her describing her experience as a 'New Australian', where her Italian background manifested itself in her appearance and the

1 1 1

64

furnishings around her home. She described this

as an alienating experience where the visible

aspects of her heritage became points of difference

between herself and other Australians. On a

separate occasion Tabacco noted how this

experience can account for the intensely colourful,

and at times decorative, nature of her works,

What I had to deny as a child, I now reclaim through my art . . . Gaudy, brash colours, nasty sophistication, decorative patterns, exotic flavours, suffocating smells, the fastidiousness of the crafted surface, were once identified as particularly 'woggy'. I now use them as a strategy of cultural resistance and survival.64

It is the visual and sensory manifestations of

culture that are the source material for her works.

These are often referenced in a minimal or

abstract way, such as stripes of colour or organic

forms that float on a background of contrasting

colour. Her choice of colour is deliberately intense

and consequently her works are optically very

hard to look at. What was once the subject of her

ridicule she uses as the weapon for her cultural

fight-back.

While there are no visual similarities between the

style of Tabacco's work and my own, there is a

relationship between the refinement of her subject

- where she alludes to her Italian heritage through

the abstract and minimal depiction of vibrant

colour - and an important development in my

project (fig. 44).

Gates, Merryn, "Can Too Much Beauty Make You Sick?", in Re:Search, exhibition catalogue, Hobart, Plimsoll Gallery, 1997, p. 19

1 1 2

fig. 44

Wilma Tabacco

Confines

1997 - 1998

acrylic on wood

214 x 540cm

I had discovered, through having illustrated my grandmother's skirt a number of times, that there were ways of alluding to it that would more successfully express the allure it holds for me as an image. I am speaking with particular reference to Five Skirts and Light Dress. In these works the

skirt becomes abstracted and through this I direct the viewer's response to the qualities of the skirt that I find seductive and intriguing. Whilst I came to this point independently of Tabacco's work65, our practices are related in their approach to our respective subject matter.

There is an aspect of one of Tabacco's more sculptural works, Caprice/ Cappriccio that relates to the visual outcomes of this project (fig. 45).

In the previous chapter, I outlined how I arrived at these points through early studio investigations.

1 1 3

fig. 45

Wilma Tabacco

CRprice/ CRppriccio

1997 - 1998

1000 hand-made silk, satin and

cotton roses

dimension and fonn variable

This work is constructed of 1000 garishly coloured silk roses. These roses were made by hand using a traditional method that was imparted to Tabacco

by her mother-in-law. Using wire they were joined, vine-like, and hung on a wall in forms evocative of floral constructions such as wreaths.

In his catalogue essay, "Saying it with Flowers", writer Edward Colless describes Caprice/

Cappriccio as something that 'threatens to grow into an ... obscenely uncontrolled budding and blossoming that could strangle'66• He recalls that Tabacco said she wanted her flowers to be 'sexy and tawdry ... beautiful but unreal, impossible, and so . . . nasty', and he says that they have a strange

Colless, Edward, "Saying it with Flowers", in Colless, Edward and Sophia Errey, Saying it with Flowers: works for a series of exhibitions by Irene Barberis and Wilma Tabbaco, Melbourne, RMIT Gallery, 1998, p. 9

1 14

67

and corrupt beauty because the work contains the labour, repetition and pain that made it.67

I regard the overwhelming, suffocating nature of Caprice/ Cappriccio, its saturation of colour and its

kitsch quality, to be an extension of her other works that turn the decorative aspects of her Italian heritage into pieces that confront the viewer through their intensity. Its obsessive construction, and dynamic form which •threatens to grow•, corresponds to the nature of my works that are submitted for examination. The obsessiveness and the exaggerations of detail and scale of the works submitted can be seen to express a longing for that to which the fragmented

remains of the artefacts alludes. Where my works express a sense of longing and a desire to build from and hang onto fragments of a lost heritage which characterises the first-generation children of migrants, Tabacco's works involve the reclaiming of a heritage that she denied herself because of her first-hand experience of cultural displacement.

The visual aspects of Tabacco' s cultural heritage are transformed in her works through which she gives them new meaning and purpose. Similarly, the artefacts from the homeland that have been

the source material for the works produced in my investigation, also undergo transformation where they take on a different appearance to their original form. While these artefacts became the subject of my curiosity, partly because they represent a culture that is different to the Australian culture of my birth, I do not use them in my works for their specific cultural references, but rather explore them as the only material connection I have to my heritage.

Colless (1998), p. 9

115

Within my project, the artefacts from my father's

homeland have been the subjects of my

investigations not only because they have a

connection to that which once existed in reality,

but also because they signify that which is now

stored in memory and (re)visited through the

imagination.

The association between objects and internal

concepts, such as memory and imagination, are

central to the practice of Domenico de Clario, who

has been an important influence within my

investigation. De Clario works predominantly as

an installation artist where he brings together a

range of objects, most often ordinary and second­

hand, sometimes including his own personal

possessions, to create spaces that are akin to the

storage areas of garages, basements and attics.

His migration from Italy to Australia has been

noted as one of the major influences on his art

practice, and as such, his practice relates to the

first-hand experience of migration, rather than

second-hand remembrance as my project does.

While de Clario forms part of the context of artists

whose practices have been informed by their own

cross-cultural experience, his influence within this

project is also due to the spaces he creates with

materials that serve as repositories for things such

as memory, experience and emotion.

De Clario has recalled his journey from Italy to

Australia at the age of eleven, describing it as an

experience that plunged him into a world of the

1 1 6

68

unknown, sending him on a 'journey within' .68

This journey may be understood as his

engagement with the internal concepts of memory

and imagination; and may be seen as an attempt

on his part to bridge the distance between the past

and present; the cultural divide between the Italy

he left behind, and his new home in Australia.

The influence of migration on de Clario's art

practice and the way in which this is reflected

through his use of discarded materials, is described

in an exhibition catalogue essay titled, "The Horse

in the Attic and the Empty Clothes", by curator

and writer Edward Colless. It tells the story of de

Clario's rejection of a wooden rocking horse that

was given to him as a Christmas present before he

and his family left Italy. The horse was said to be

frightening to de Clario as a child, and was

consequently locked away in the attic of the

apartment building in which he and his family

lived. Upon returning to Italy 35 years later, he

hoped to salvage from the attic of his old home

some of the objects of his childhood, particularly

the rocking horse he had rejected. He found that

the things he sought had disappeared and that all

that remained was an old, rusty tricycle. De

Clario's memory of the tricycle was unclear and so

he contacted his parents in Australia to learn if it

had any significance. Receiving confirmation that

it had been his he took it with him and later

incorporated it into an installation that was

housed in an old basement.

The momentofhis arrival in Australia was later the subject of a performance by de Clario on Princes Pier, Port Melbourne. In this performance, he symbolically reenacts this moment using: a piano, seven coloured lights (representing the seven chakras in Tantric Hinduism, which are energy centres within the body), and twenty passages from a story by Italo Calvina, "A Return to the Opaque", which contrasts the visible with the invisible world. See Gunn, Grazia, "The Magnificent Seven: The imaginary Worlds of Domenico de Clario", in Art and Aus tralia, Vol. 34, No. 3, 1997, p. 365

1 1 7

69

As Colless' essay reveals, the significance of the tricycle was not that it facilitated de Clario's

remembrance of his childhood, but rather that it was verified as an authentic part of his life prior to migration, a part of his home in Italy; a life that

could never be returned to. The tricyCle therefore became a substitute for all that had been lost and left behind, and its significance was ascribed based

on its connection to the past rather than its ability to evoke any memory specific to it as an object.

Colless has likened de Clario' s use of objects to a

clairvoyant who,

. . . by handling someone's personal effects, communicates on their behalf with an invisible, unnatural realm - a realm of poetic associations,

unconsciom wishes or occult fantasy.69

This is particularly evident in his installation Memory Palace (Machine-for-Contacting-the­

Dead) which has been exhibited several times over a number of years at different venues. While

aspects of this work vary according to the specifics of its location, the sense of ritual, and the attempt

to bring the past into the present, or the attempt to ftravel' to places that are not part of our actual

world, remain essential to the installation.

In one version of this work shown at Cable House, an old energy repository and transformer in

Victoria, de Clario brought together a range of materials, including: doors, soil, toys, a mass of

wires, a television monitor and other household electrical appliances. His intervention in the

Colless, Edward, Tile Diver's Clothes Lying Empty: Domenico de Clario: A survey 1966�1996,Me1boume, Monash University, 1997, p. 4

1 1 8

fig. 46

Domenico de Clario

Floor plan for Memory Palace,

Cable House, Melbourne.

space was not always obvious, some components

of the installation were scratched or scribbled onto

the surface of the walls or on existing fixtures at

the site. The whole installation consisted of a

series of related works that de Clario explains form

the circuit of the JMachine'70 (fig. 46).

--,-- . "l

L-rJ_ __ .

.:_ 1 1 _ · . , • I • • 1

r-· I . l �: -t . II ' h -�---' . I . . l . . . . � L _ · � l _ .I ·�- J. � _ J

The Machine-for-Contacting-the-Dead was the

central component of this exhibition and housed a

small painting belonging to de Clario which came

out with him and his family from Italy(fig. 47).

Stacey, Andrew, "Memory Palace Installation: machine-for­contacting-the-dead, Domenico de Clario", in The Interior, Vol. 1, No. 2, September-November 1991, p. 32

1 19

fig. 47

Domenico de Ciarlo

Machine-for-contacting-the-dead

(detail), 1991, mixedmedia

The idea that internal states are engaged through

material forms is central to my investigation. I have explored the artefacts from my father's homeland as a means of access to the past and this place that only survives in my father's memories and flourishes in my imagination. I have also been interested in the emotional weight of these things as signifiers of absence and loss, be it the loss of the homeland or of my father's family.

During my investigation, Christian Boltanski became a significant reference as an artist using the emotive capacity of the photographic portrait and second-hand clothing in works that appear to memorialise the individuaL It is the atmosphere that he creates in his photographic installations through lighting and his altar-like constructions,

and the overwhelming sense of loss and absence that is present in his clothing installations, that is

especially relevant to this project. There is no direct visual correlation between his use of photographs and clothing, and how these have featured in my work. My work has not utilised the medium of photography or the use of actual clothing for its outcome, but rather such things

120

71

have been a source for, and a subject of, the research. Throughout my research the

photograph has carried a particular significance because of its connection to reality and the irrecoverable past; and, paradoxically, because particular photographs present an image of a non­

reality as contrived images. It is the sense of absence and loss that is conveyed by the photograph which is a potent reminder that it is a trace of what is no longer, and consequently the

irretrievability of the past, that is the source of their power in this investigation.

Boltanski works from his own large archive of

photographic portraits. These photographs are never taken directly from the subject, but are either re-photographed from an original portrait or a reproduction of one he finds in magazines and newspapers. The process of re-photographing images allows Boltanski to manipulate the portraits; he enlarges them, increases the contrast

between black and white, diminishing individual characteristics which turns their subjects into ghoulish looking creatures. In one sense he uses the photographic portrait because it serves to

identify the individual while, at the same time, he aims to obliterate the individual from their own image and present them as a representative of a collective humanity.71 Although he usually

knows nothing of the subjects of these photographs, through his manipulation of the images and the contexts in which he places them,

the implication is that they are portraits of the

The use of contradiction has been discussed in much of the literature published on his work. See interview betw·een Christian Boltanski and Tamar Garb in, Semin, Didier, and Tamar Garb and Donald Kuspit, Christian Boltanski, Phaidon Press, London, 19'fl, p 6 - 44. Here he discusses how the images he uses, whilst 'resurrecting' them and giving them new life, are turned into generic portraits. See his exhibition titled "Menschlich"{Humanity) shown in Vienna, 1996. p 25 - 26

121

72

dead. Boltanski suggests that it is not just his particular manipulation and use of the photographic portrait, but the medium of photography itself that is responsible for this interpretation of his works, where he said:

... whenwelookat the photowe always believe that it is real; it's not real but it has a close connection with reality. If you paint a portrait that connection is not so close. With a photo you really feel that the people were 'there' ... I use photos because I'm very interested in the subject-object relationship. A photo is an object, and its relationship with the subject is lost. It also has

a relationship with death.72

The combination of photography's relationship to

reality and death contribute to the emotive power of his photographic installations. This may be seen in the many installations that he has

produced over a number of years under the title Monuments: The Children of Dijon. While these installations vary according to the architecture of the exhibition site, they essentially involve the same elements. Boltanski presents black and white portraits of children in thin tin frames, and arranges some as groups that are suggestive of altar-pieces. The images are surrounded and illuminated by clusters of light bulbs, powered by black electrical cords that hang from each bulb. The spaces he creates are comparable to places of worship and the illuminated photographs of individuals may be likened to shrines commemorating the dead. Regardless of the fact

Much of his early work aims at contradicting photography's 'connection to the real' and its accepted use as 'evidence'. Boltanski has used this myth of credibility to establish as 'true' situations that he invents, such as his elaborate record of a bicycle accident he never had, or the use of images of anonymous children which he presents as himself in a documentary of his own childhood. See Semin, Didier and Garb {1997), p 25

122

75

that Boltanski has used images of children that

may well be alive, the way he installs these images

and the atmosphere he creates suggests they are

indeed portraits of the dead.

It is the transformation from portrait to shrine

that occurs in Boltanski's photographic works, or

that which has been described as the distinction he

makes between 'images that are venerated and

those that are looked at'75, that is significant to this

research. This is directly related to the status of

the photographs that have been the subject of my

investigation. While my father's photographs

signify what once existed in front of the lens of the

camera, they also signify what is no longer and

consequently are signifiers of loss and death. As

such, I have attributed to these photographs a

significance that takes them beyond the family

'snapshot' or historical image.

The use of discarded clothing in Boltanski' s

installations such as Lake of the Dead, convey an

overwhelming sense of loss and absence. In this

installation Boltanski covered the entire floor

space of the gallery with a heavy dumping of

second-hand clothing. A wooden walkway was in

place to enable the viewer to walk through the

space without disturbing his installation. Light

bulbs were mounted on the walls of the gallery

with their exposed cords hanging down and

underneath the clothing (fig. 48).

Semin (1997), p. 63

123

fig. 48

Christian Boltansk.i

Lake cf tire Dead, 1 �'

Second-hand clothing and

lights. Dimensions variable

As clothing contours the body so intimately, it takes on the form of the body. This makes recycled clothing a powerful symbol of the absent body because it has had a real connection to it. Because bodies once occupied the clothes their emotive power is made more intense by the anonymity and unknown fate of their previous owners.

Clothing or costume has been the subject of my works in a way that differs from Boltanski's clothing installations. My works do not present actual clothing but rather, have involved the construction of pieces in the likeness of clothing or costume, and from materials that would not normally be associated with clothing, such as paper for example. Through this representation, these works also carry associations with the body,

124

fig. 49

Christian Boltanski

Reserve: Canada, 1988,

second-hand clothing and lights.

Dimensions variable.

76

or an individual, as Boltanski's do. Where the clothing in Boltanski's installations represent the absence of the body and the loss of the life it once contained, my works that are based on my grandmother's skirt, take on a life that is independent of a body, a life that is made stronger by the body's absence. This life or animation transforms them from skirt, for example, to a

fetish object where the object (the skirt) becomes a substitute for the subject (my grandmother and the homeland).

Given the scale of Boltanski's works created by the vast amounts of clothing and photographic portraits he uses, the subject of the Holocaust is

often read into his works. At times he makes direct reference to the subject, such as the clothing installation Reserve: Canada from 1988, for example, where the title corresponded to the depot Canada where the effects of Holocaust victims were stored76 (fig. 49).

In other works the subject of the holocaust is not so much referenced but implied by the vast numbers of �victims', and the memorial nature of his installations. Boltanski was born the son of a

Hirsch (1997), p.257

125

77

711

79

survivor, post-Holocaust, and says that he does not speak directly of the Holocaust in his work, because his work comes after the Holocaust.77

Boltanski is separated from this event by a generation, and so his reference to the subject does not relate to first-hand experience, but rather, to the memory of it that he has inherited -as part of

his family history. It is not the specifics of the subject of the Holocaust that is related to my project, but rather, how Boltanski, as another artist operating within the generation of postmemory, deals with the second-hand nature of his 'memory' or 'experience' of the Holocaust. Marianne Hirsch argues that Boltanski's symbolic

implication of the Holocaust in his works

represent

... [his] search for a post-Holocaust aesthetic that would contain his generation's absent memory shaped by loss, mourning and ambivalence.711

The Holocaust is not so far removed from his own

history that it has become insignificant, but at the same time, it is not part of his immediate memory, his position is somewhere between forgetting and remembering. Hirsch says that

whilst some may find Boltanski's desire to aim for universality problematic in relation to the Holocaust, it does highlight the fact that the gap

between memory and postmemory is forever increasing?9

The deliberate lack of specificity in his work can be

understood as the effect of the generational

distance between himself and the event that shaped his family and his own life. This

Garb, Tamar, 'Interview with Christian Boltanski', in, Semin, Garb and Kuspit (1997), p. 19 Hirsch (1997), pp. 258-259 Hirsch (1997), p. 264

126

corresponds to the way in which I am not concerned with an accurate depiction of the past, nor have I intended to replicate what is depicted in my father's photographs, but rather, I have sought to allude to the effect of this distance on my perception of the homeland.

My perception of the homeland has been constructed in my imagination, and as such, it is not restrained by real knowledge and truth, but fuelled by the absence of it. I would liken this to the work of American artist Joseph Cornell and his interest in the creative and seemingly unrestrained VISion of children which is evidenced in their play and interaction with objects. The works produced within this investigation have re-contextualised the images and objects from my father's homeland, and express an unrestrained vision akin to that of children as they project an inflated and exaggerated version of their subject. One example of this can be seen in Zslatona where the exaggerated scale of the skirt is in keeping with my father's description of his mother, and the image of her that this has established in my mind. Another aspect of Cornell's work that is related to my own concerns is the allure that all things elusive held for Cornell, be they moments, people - such as movie stars - or his own feelings. His desire to capture the fleeting, and preserve it so it could fulfil the desire to relive 'the moment' relates to my preoccupation with the material from my father's homeland as the only tangible connection between the present and the past.

Cornell worked almost exclusively in the area of

collage and assemblage in which he would present

127

8D

81

objects behind glass, framed within a box. His

materials were gathered from his frequent visits to

second-hand stores and bazaars. From here, he

gathered a vast range of ephemera, including

books, jewellery, toys, souvenirs, and

photographs. His boxes and collages transformed

the found materials he used beyond their

ordinariness which was summarised by writer

Kynaston McShine who remarked that Cornell

'treated the ephemeral object as if it were the rarest

heirloom of a legendary prince or princess'.80

Cornell was fascinated by the prospect of his

materials being interchangeable between the

ordinary and the extraordinary. The value he

ascribed to the raw materials of his boxes

corresponded to their capacity for this

interchangeability. Writer John Ashbery

expressed this when recounting his first viewing

of Cornell's work and the impression it left upon

him:

I was . . . at the age when the shock of seeing that we have as very young children was beginning to go, and to be supplemented by adult knowledge which explains further but shields us from the dazzling, single knowledge we get from the first things we see in life . . . These are, as it happens, toys or bits of junk,. or cloth perhaps, maps, illustrations in encyclopedias that we pore over, realising they are "too old for us

" but which nevertheless supply us with the vital information of a sort that their makers never had in mjnd. It was this visual magic that struck me immediately when I first saw Cornell's work . . . 81

The apparent absence of adult knowledge in

Cornell's work gives the materials he employs the

freedom to entice the viewer to a myriad of

associations. In this regard, the infinity of space to

McShine, Kynaston, Joseph Cornell, The Museum of Modem Art, New York, 1980, p. 10 Ashbery, John, in his Foreword to Caws, Marianne, Joseph Cornell's Theatre of the Mind, New York, Thames and Hudson, 1993, pp. 9-10

1 2 8

82

which his boxes alluded may be seen as a direct contrast to their containment and actual size.

The photographs and objects that have been examined in this investigation offer a fragmented glimpse of Croatia, and hence very little knowledge of this place or the past, and this is part of their allure. The absence of knowledge that they represent has aroused my curiosity because they signify the exotic and the unattainable. This has given me the freedom to provide my own context for these representations of the homeland, one that encourages their metamorphosis.

At times, Cornell's box constructions had very specific references. These were usually female

actresses or dancers, both living and dead. One of the most interesting accounts of this work was

that he was not so much obsessed with their person, but rather with their 'star' quality, that 'the aura they possessed, possessed him'82• These

works would either pay homage to their star status, such as his portraits of actress Lauren Bacall, or to the role for which they were remembered, such as his obsession with Italian ballerina Fanny Cerrito in her role as Ondine (a water-nymph who emerges from the sea to seduce a fisherman) . One box construction in homage to Cerrito of 1947 represents her as a small ballerina

figurine standing in front of a scallop shell behind a veil (fig. 50).

Caws (1993), p. 38

129

fig. 50

Joseph Cornell, Untitled

(Cerrito in "Ondine" ),1947,

mixed media, 29.8 x 38.3 x 1 O.lan

Cornell selected green tinted glass for this homage to Cerrito as Ondine and this imparts a dreamlike quality to the work. The romanticism of the ballet was a common focus of these homages which is revealing of the particular qualities he sought. The light, mood and colouring is often seductive and enchanting which places its contents outside

of reality.

Cornell endeavoured to capture the transient, to catch and preserve it so that it could be used to fulfill the desire to return to 'the moment'. This can be seen in his work titled Taglioni's Jewel

Casket where Cornell presents an opened vel vet lined jewel box as that belonging to Taglioni, a nineteenth-century ballerina (fig. 51).

130

fig. 51

Joseph Cornell

Taglioni's Jewel Casket, 1940,

mixed media, l2 x 30.2 x 21an

A rhinestone necklace is hung inside its lid, and its contents include a layer of glass ice cubes that, once removed, reveal jewels and shards of coloured glass. The legend surrounding the ballerina is inscribed inside the lid of the box, which reads:

On a moonlit night in the winter of 1835 the carriage of Marie Taglioni I was halted by a Russian highwayman, and that ethereal creature commanded I to dance for this audience of one upon a panthet s skin spread over the I snow beneath the stars. From this actuality arose the legend that, to keep I alive the memory of this adventure so precious to her, Taglioni formed the I habit of placing a piece of ice in her jewel casket ordressing table drawer I where melting among the sparkling stones, there was evoked a hint of I the starlit heavens over the ice-covered landscape.83

The associations of the contents of the box are obvious: the dark velvet and the panther's skin; the ice cubes and the snow, and the necklace and

Tashjian, Dickran, Joseph Cornell: Gifts of Desire, Miami Beach, Grassfield Press, 1992, p. 113

1 3 1

the stars. Taglioni's jewel box entertains her

imagination by enabling her to relive her fantasy,

and transports her back in time through the

symbolic juxtaposition of jewels and ice.

Contained within the box, the contents have the

capacity to transcend their plastic reality. Once

removed, they would be no more than artificial

ice and jewels, and would no longer be the

precious link between Taglioni and the past,

between reality and fantasy.

This relates to the artefacts that are at the centre of

this research. These images and objects are

removed from their original context - Croatia at a

specific moment in time. Within their new

context - Australia - they are more than family

snapshots and old wares. Instead, they have

become relics of a Croatia that can never be visited

or returned to. Through the disruption and

displacement of my father's migration experience,

these photographs have come to represent the

homeland and his family as he has described them

in idealistic terms. My father's idealic description

is supported by the photographs themselves

because of the use of a studio backdrop, and the

elaborate state of dress of those depicted, which set

these depictions apart from the reality of the time.

The photographs do not represent daily life as it

existed in the Croatia from which my father first

departed, and the backdrop gives no indication as

to what the Croatian landscape was really like. My

father's homeland is therefore not one that can be

returned to in a physical sense, but rather, is

(re)visited 1n memory and through the

imagination, and this is reflected in the works

produced during this investigation. These works

1 3 2

have been a reinvention of their original source ­

the artefacts from the homeland. This

reinvention has entailed the exaggeration of detail

and scale, and the creation of a tactility and

materiality that was implied and therefore

imagined. This aspect of the project was

influenced by the work of artist Ann Hamilton

whose installations are renowned for their

spectacular visual impact and overwhelming

material presence. This presence is achieved

through the use of few elements which are

present in huge quantities. Of equal intensity is

Hamilton's meticulous construction of her works

that is visible in the attention given to detail and

surface.

Hamilton's practice is largely driven by her

interest in human and animal systems, be they to

do with classification, bodies of knowledge, or

behavoural systems. While my project and

Hamilton's work are not related through any

conceptual similarity, there is a relationship

between my work and her obsessive constructions

and the manner in which the materials she uses

are transformed through their repetition from

individual elements into components of a unified

whole. Influenced by her background in textile

design, Hamilton has related the manner in

which she works to cloth and its metaphors,

where she said:

Cloth, like human skin, is a membrane that divides an interior from an exterior .. . [In the making of cloth], individual threads of warp are crossed successively with individual threads of weft. Thus, cloth is an accumulation of many gestures of crossing which, like my gestures of accumulation, retain an individual character while [they grow together] to become something else.B4

Nesbitt, Judith, and Neville Wakefield, Ann Hamilton: Mneme, Liverpool, Tate Gallery Liverpool, 1994, p. 16

1 3 3

Characteristically, Hamilton encloses the viewer in her work, literally, by covering every square centimetre of the installation space - be it walls smeared with algae or soot, or floors covered with hair or thousands of pennies. The experience of her works is a sensory one and so there· is always an internal response to the environment or object she constructs. In this regard, her work may be seen as an exploration of the boundary between internal and external worlds.

The exploration of the boundary between self and the world, or interior and exterior, is related to my project because the materials that have been the source of my investigations have been explored, symbolically, as the boundary between internal I external, real and imagined. By way of example, the photographic image of my grandmother's skirt exists in reality as a material form (the photograph), and as a depiction of a reality (in that it captures my grandmother as she existed in front of the lens of the camera). Furthermore, it is also a means by which my father can engage with his memory, and I with my

imagination, both of which are internal concepts. As such, these photographs, and the other artefacts that have been explored within my investigation, are on the threshold between the two.

In her installation Parallel Lines (1991), Hamilton constructed a work that was concerned with issues of memory and absence or loss (figs. 52 & 53).

134

fig. 52

Ann Hamilton. Parallel Lines, 1991, first

chamber installation 'With copper tokens,

wax candles, and soot-lined walls

fig. 53

Ann Hamilton. Parallel Lines, 1991,

second chamber: display cases,

turkey carcasses,Dermestid beetles.

This was a two-roomed installation which consisted of very few elements which were present in enormous proportions. In the first room, the larger of the two, the walls were covered with a layer of soot from burning candles.

1 35

ss

The long white candles, like those used in churches, were bundled and placed lengthwise along a raised, curved base measuring 40 feet long and 12 feet wide. This appears just ample to hold the tonnes of candles, the weight of which was accentuated by the curvature of the base.

The floor of the first room was covered with thousands of copper tags that had each been stamped with numbers, like those used to identify slaves and miners. In the second room, connected to the first by two entrances, the walls and floors were covered with more of the copper tags. Two

glass and steel display cases were situated down the centre of the room displaying two turkey carcasses that were in the process of being devoured by dermestid beetles.85

The elements she selected for this work: the metal identification tags, the candles, and the turkey carcasses which were in the process of being devoured, may all be associated with loss, the irrecoverable passing of time, and the memory that is embedded in objects. This work has strong associations with the memorial: the obsessive

nature of the work suggests the desperate attempt to capture what is in danger of being eternally lost or forgotten.

Hamilton relies on our ability to recogmze the elements with which she works. Recognition carries with it a range of given associations, such as the candles with mourning and remembrance, for example. However, the element of recognition is only one aspect of the work The scale of many

of her installations is similar to that of Parallel

Lines, through which the collective elements

My discussion of Hamilton's work, as with that of other artist's work, has relied upon the illustrations and descriptions of other writers.

136

86

metamorphose into something un1que to their

singular units. The material excess of Hamilton's

installations imparts an organic quality to her

works, and this was influential to the qualities I

sought to impart to Zslatona and Light Dress. In

each case, the quality of the final works is

dependent upon the unity and quantity of its parts

as it is through this that growth and an internal

life force are suggested.

Whilst our works are driven bydifferent concerns,

there is a similarity in the obsessive nature of our

works, and in our respective use of repetition and

detail in order to achieve this.

Of particular influence to my investigation is the

comment Hamilton made in relation to her own

work where she states: 'the way things are said is

what they mean' .86 This idea became an

important testfor me with a number of the works

produced during this investigation, particularly

when I moved on from illustrative depictions,

and began to work in three-dimensions with

hand-made paper, light, shadow, and linen thread.

The following conclusion provides a summary of

the central concerns of this research and its

contribution to the field.

Smallgood, Lyn.. "Ann Hamilton: Natural Histories", in Art News, April 1992, p. 83

137

CONCLUSION

In this research project, I have investigated the

artefacts from my father's homeland as forms of

representation upon which my knowledge and

perception of the homeland, my history and

cultural heritage have come to be based. This

investigation has also been shaped by the oral

history I have inherited through my father's

stories, memories and descriptions of his family

and the Croatia from which he fled in 1957. This

material evidence may be found in the homes and

among the heir looms of many Australians,

connecting them to a great variety of cultural

heritages. They may also be found in various

collections, communities and museums where an

attempt has been made to preserve and rebuild

this history and the stories passed down through several generations. However so much of this

cultural and family history is embellished through

story telling, the instability of memory, and

sentiment, and much of it remains forever

untold. This heritage does not only exist in the

concrete forms of the material remains of the past,

but also in folktale and the imagination.

The principal concern of this investigation has

been my projection of an inflated significance onto

the artefacts through my interpretation of these

images and objects as representations of the exotic

and the unattainable, and as signifiers of memory,

and · presence as well as absence. I therefore

ascribed a significance to these materials that was

far in excess of their material worth. Through my

138

explorations of these artefacts, I found that their

aura was not related to the place from which they

were transported, but rather to the imaginary

world that they inspired. It was also revealed that

my obsession was fuelled by the futile pursuit of

the homeland, and the unbridgeable distance

between the past and the present.

My works do not simply reference or illustrate

these artefacts, creating a new cross-cultural

context for them in order to describe their position

as culturally displaced objects. Nor do I use them

as a means by which to reclaim a repressed

heritage or a lost history. Rather, the significance

of this research is where I have reinvented this

source material, distorting and changing it, in

order to represent the transformation that occurs

both through my projection of significance onto

these artefacts, and in the new life they have as

articles of significance and meaning for the first­

generation children of migrants.

In contrast with traditional printmaking, my

works are unique, one-of£ pieces in that they are

not part of an edition. Where the work has been

constructed of multiple, repeated images, the focus

is on the work as a unified whole and the

collective presence of its many components rather

than its singular units. At the same time

however, the use of repetition and the multiple is

integral to my work insofar as it was instrumental

in imparting an obsessive nature to the project.

For the first-generation children of migrants who

have fragmented remains of their cultural

heritage from which to derive knowledge and an

understanding of their history, they often develop

139

and intense, obsessive interest in the past and the

homeland. Thus, 1 have used repetition, and

intense detail, in order to convey my relentless

curiosity with the photographs and objects that

connect me to m y cultural heritage.

A further development from traditional

printmaking was where the work moved into

three-dimensional, sculptural uses of the print.

The print as object was a vital development in the

project as it created a better relationship between

the form of the work and the concept behind it.

The work was an exploration of the flat, two­

dimensional photograph and the absence and loss

it signifies. While the ascribed significance of the

photographs is due to their capacity to signify loss

and absence, the reasons for this ascribed

significance was not evident in the work until the

point at which the work moved into a third

dimension. The three-dimensional aspect of the

work brought that which was denied by the

photograph into an actual, physical, tactile

existence which was emphasised further by the

exaggeration of scale and form and the material

excess of the works.

A further move toward a new conception of the

print is seen in the works that did not use

conventional printing techniques, but were

constructed using processes that were derived

from my knowledge of printmaking. This is

evident in Map and Light Dress. In Map the

images were traced from a preexisting source, be it

a photocopy of my father's travel documents,

maps, or my own free-hand drawing, and can

therefore be seen as an impression taken from a

140

surface, just as the traditional print 1s.

Furthermore, there is a relationship between the

construction of an image through the black thread

in this work and the image that is built-up

through the etched line. Likewise, the 'image' in

L ight Dress is made by the impression left in the

paper (as it is through the perforations that light

passes, creating the 'image'), just as the traditional

printed image is made by an impression, be it

chemical or physical, that is left in the plate.

While this research project has reached a

conclusion in that various issues and concerns

were resolved in its undertaking, I do not see that

I will ever be free of working with these concepts,

but rather that they will continue to manifest

themselves in my work in other ways.

-- -..

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141

List of Illustrations

Fig. 1 Portrait of my Grandparents, Katica and Stjepan

Stivicic, c. 1925.

Fig. 2

Group Portrait. Back, left to right: Katica and

Stjepan Stivicic and my great-aunt. Front: my

great-grandmother and my aunt, Marica Stivicic

(baby), c. 1930

Fig. 3

Jean Honore Fragonard, The Swing, c. 1766, oil on

canvas, 83 x 66cm.

Fig. 4

Photograph of Art and Anja Spiegelman,

reproduced in Maus I: My Father Bleeds History, p.

100.

Fig. S

Photograph of Richieu Spiegelman, reproduced in

Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, dedication

page.

Fig. 6

Photograph of Vladek Spiegelman, reproduced in

Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, p. 134.

Fig. 7

Jan Davidsz, de Heem, Vase of Flowers, c. 1660, oil

on canvas, 69.6 x 56.5cm.

1 42

I I

r

Fig. 8

Max Ernst, collage from Une Semaine de bonte,

1934.

Fig. 9

Karen Lunn, Double Portrait, 1997, lithograph, 50 x

70cm.

Fig.10

Karen Lunn, Dress Print, 1997, lithograph, 75 x

55cm.

Fig. 11

Karen Lunn, Boy Father Holding a Ball, 1997,

lithograph, 72 x 47 em.

Fig. 12

Left to right: Steven Mato Stivicic (my father),

Tomislav Stivicic (my uncle), and Marica Stivicic

(my aunt), c. 1937.

Fig. 13

Karen Lunn, Red Dress, 1997, colour lithograph,

22.5 x 17cm.

Fig. 14

Karen Lunn, Skirt Collage, 1998, collage in

journal.

Fig. 15

Karen Lunn, Motif, 1998, black and white and

colour lithograph, dimensions variable.

Fig.16

Karen Lunn, coloured drawing, 42 x 41cm.

143

I !

I I l

\. I

f !

Fig. 17 Karen Lunn, wattle design in journal.

Fig. 18 Karen Lunn, Five Skirts, 1998 - 1999, lithograph

and drawing, backed with aluminium, 174 x

160cm.

Fig. 19

Karen Lunn, Five Skirts (detail).

Fig. 20

Karen Lunn, Zslatona/ My Gold, 1999 - 2002,

screenprint on hand-made cotton-rag paper.

Height: 290cm.

Fig. 21

Karen Lunn, untitled, 1999, lithograph and pen

and ink, 70 x 54cm.

Fig. 22

Detail of my grandmother's skirt from

photograph.

Fig. 23

Karen Lunn, untitled, 1999, lithograph and pen

and ink, 199 x 270cm.

Fig. 24

Karen Lunn, untitled lithograph with hand-made

cotton-rag paper, 1999.

Fig. 25

Frame made of laminated pine ribs. 1999.

1 44

Fig. 26 Karen Lunn, Zslatona/ My Gold, in progress, 2000.

Fig. 27 Karen Lunn, Light Dress, 1999 - 2002, hand-made

paper and lights, dimension and form variable.

Fig. 28

Karen Lunn, Light Dress (detail).

Fig. 29

Journal sketch.

Fig. 30

Book form trial.

Fig. 31

Frame.

Fig. 32

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Loie Fuller, 1893,

lithograph using brush and spatter, 36.8 x 26.8cm.

Fig. 33

Karen Lunn, Red Dress, 2001 - 2002, etching and

watercolour, 222 x 55cm.

Fig. 34

Karen Lunn, Landscape/ Fantasy, 1999 - 2002,

lithograph and drawing, 266 x 327cm.

Fig. 35

Karen Lunn, Landscape/ Fantasy (detail).

145

Fig. 36 Jean Honore Fragonard, The Swing (detail).

Fig. 37

Karen Lunn, Map, 2001 - 2002, waxed linen

thread, dimensions and form variable.

Fig. 38

Karen Lunn, Map (detail).

Fig. 39

Karen Lunn, Map Portrait, 1997, lithograph, 60 x

49cm.

Fig. 40

My studio wall, August, 2001.

Fig. 41

Portrait of my father from his Aliens Act

Registration document.

Fig. 42

Image of heart from Diderot Encyclopedia, vol. 1,

1978, p. 111.

Fig. 43

Elizabeth Gertsakis, Photograph No. 3, 1985, black

and white photograph.

Fig. 44

Wilma Tabacco, Confines, 1997 - 1998, acrylic on

wood, 214 x 540cm.

1 46

Fig. 45 Wilma Tabacco, Caprice/ Cappriccio, 1997 - 1998,

1000 hand-made silk, satin and cotton roses,

dimensions and form variable.

Fig. 46 Domenico de Clario, floor plan for Mem ory

Palace, Cable House, Melbourne.

Fig. 47

Domencio de Clario, Machine-for-contacting-the­

dead (detail), mixed media.

Fig. 48

Christian Boltanski, Lake of the Dead, 1990,

second-hand clothing and lights. Dimensions

variable.

Fig. 49

Christian Boltanski, Reserve: Canada, 1988,

second-hand clothing and lights. Dimensions

variable.

Fig. 50

Joseph Comell, Untitled (Cerrito as #OndineH),

1947, mixed media, 29.8 x 38.3 x lO.lcm.

Fig. 51

Joseph Comell, Taglioni's Jewel Casket, 1940,

m.ixed media, 12 x 30.2 x 21cm.

Fig. 52

Ann Hamilton, Parallel Lines, 1991, first chamber

installation with copper tokens, wax candles, and

soot-lined walls.

147

I II>

Fig. 53 Ann Hamilton, Parallel Lines, 1991, second

chamber: display cases, turkey carcasses, dermesti.d

beetles.

---------- ·:----- � .i

UTAS � I

. i .............. ___ ··-- -·--- -=---.-� .....

148

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